Society: Its Origin and Development Part 20

289. =Public and Private Agencies.=--Inst.i.tutions and agencies of relief are of two kinds, public and private. It is one of the functions of every social group to promote the welfare of its members.

It is to be expected, therefore, that the church and the trade-union will help their own poor, but it is just as proper to expect that the whole community, and even the whole state, will take care of its own needy. The distinction between public and private agencies is not one of fundamental sociological principle, but one of convenience and efficiency of administration. Where the state has extended its activities, as in Germany, relief by such a method as the Elberfeld system is practicable; where public opinion, as in the United States, is not favorable to remanding as much as possible to the government, it is thought best that private agencies should supplement State aid, and in most cases make it unnecessary.

290. =Arguments for and Against Private Agencies of Relief.=--Some argue that private agencies should do it all. In spite of the large resources at the command of the state and the frequent necessity of legislation to handle the problem, they claim that public aid humiliates and degrades the recipient, while private a.s.sistance may put him on his feet without destroying his self-respect; and that public charity is too often unfeeling and tends to become a routine affair, while private aid can deal better with specific cases, show real interest and try experiments in the improvement of methods. There are those who would have all charity given back to the church. They believe the responsibility would stimulate the church's own life, extend its influence among the unchurched, show that it had an interest in the bodies as well as the souls of the people, and bring about co-operation between churches in the districts of town or city.

It is of the genius of true religion to be helpful, and the church could soon learn wise methods. In answer to this argument the reply is that at present the indiscriminate charity of the church is doing real harm; that the church does not like to co-operate with other agencies; that it does not have adequate resources to deal with the problem or legal authority to restrain mendicants or segregate the various cla.s.ses of dependents; and that all persons in the community ought to share in the responsibility of poor relief, and not all are in the church. They recognize the valuable aid of such organizations as the Hebrew Charities and the work of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of the Catholics, but they believe that such as these at best can be only auxiliary to the state.

An ill.u.s.tration of the usefulness of private a.s.sociations appears in a group of seven boys of foreign parentage in New York City, who organized themselves in 1903 into a quick-aid-to-the-hungry committee.

They were only thirteen years old and poor. They lived on the East Side, and pennies and nickels did not make a full treasury. But they knew the need and had an instinct for helping the right people. In seven years these boys helped in more than two hundred and fifty emergency cases; their pennies grew to dollars as they earned more; their charity developed their self-respect; they held weekly meetings for debate, and several of them made their way through college. Funds were supplied, also, from friends outside, who were glad to aid such a worthy enterprise. The great need among private agencies is fuller co-operation with one another and with public boards and inst.i.tutions.

Then duplication of effort, misunderstandings, and wastefulness are avoided, and the hope of a decline in conditions of poverty increases.

There are limits, however, to the ability of private agencies to control the situation. There are cases where the organized community or state must take a hand. There are lazy persons who will not support themselves or their families; there are certain persons who are chronically ill or dependent; there are various types of defectives and delinquents. All these need the authority of the public agencies.

Then there are constructive activities that require the a.s.sistance and sanction of government, like parks and playgrounds, industrial schools, employment bureaus, the establishment and administration of state inst.i.tutions, and the enforcement of health, sanitary, and building laws. Of course there is often inefficiency in government management. The local almshouse needs reforming, and the overseers of the poor should be trained experts. The organization and superintendence of state inst.i.tutions is not ideal, and building arrangements need improvement, but there is a steady gain in the efficiency of boards of trustees and local managers. There is a willingness to learn from experience and a disposition to raise the standards in all departments of administration.

291. =The Social Settlement.=--However efficient an official board may be in the discharge of its duties, it cannot expect to call out from the beneficiary so enthusiastic a response as can a real friend. The best friends of the poor are their neighbors. It is well known that a group of families in a tenement house will help one of their number that is in specific difficulty, and that the poor give more generously to help their own kind than do those who are more well-to-do. It was a conviction of these principles of friendliness and neighborliness that led to the first social settlements. Because a person lives in an undesirable part of the city he is not necessarily a subject for charity, and the settlement is in no sense to be thought of as a charitable agency. It is a home established among the less-favored part of the population by educated, refined, sympathetic people who want to be neighborly and to bring courage and cheer and helpfulness to the struggling ma.s.ses. The original residents of Hull House in Chicago believed that cla.s.s alienation could be overcome best by the establishment of intimate social relationships, and they were willing to sacrifice their natural social advantages for the larger good.

Settlements are not exclusively of the city, but the stress of life is sternest in the cities, and most of the experiments have been made there. They are oases in the desert of the buildings and pavements of brick, with their grime and monotony, and if the people of the desert will camp for an hour and drink of the spring, those who have planted the oasis will be well pleased. To attract them the settlement workers have organized clubs and cla.s.ses for united study and activity in matters that naturally interest the people of the neighborhood; they have music and dancing and amateur theatricals, and often they supply domestic or industrial training in a small way for the young people who frequent the settlement. The residents aim to give the people what they want; they do not impose anything upon them. They try to satisfy economic and social wants. They try to stimulate the people of the neighborhood to desire the best things that they can get. They co-operate with the police and other departments of the city government, with the library, and with the school. They a.s.sist in procuring work for those who want it; they encourage the people to be thrifty and temperate; they help them to get baths and gymnastic facilities, playgrounds, and social centres. They frequently carry on investigations that are of great value and a.s.sist charitable agencies in their inquiries and beneficence. They call frequently upon the people in their homes and encourage them to ask for counsel and help if they are in trouble.

The settlement idea grew out of a growing interest in the common people. It was stimulated by Maurice's establishment at London of a working man's college, with recent Cambridge graduates as teachers, and by university extension work in Cambridge; it was suggested further by the location of Edward Denison in the East End of London in 1867. In 1885 Canon Barnett, of St. Jude's Church, London, founded Toynbee Hall under Oxford auspices. The first settlement in the United States was established in New York in 1887, and soon became known as the University Settlement. Hull House in Chicago was started two years later; the first settlement in Boston was founded under the auspices of the Andover Theological Seminary. Most settlements avoid church connections, because of the danger of misunderstandings among people of widely differing faiths.

The settlement has existed long enough to become a true social inst.i.tution. It has remained true to its original principle of neighborliness, but it has increased its activities as occasion demanded. It has been a useful object-lesson to churches and city governments; some of its methods have been imitated, and in some of the cities its efforts have become unnecessary in certain directions because the city government itself has adopted its plans. The settlement has its critics and its devoted supporters; it is one of the voluntary experiments that shows the spirit of its promoters and that helps along social progress, and it must be estimated among the a.s.sets of a community. Here and there in the country among certain groups, as lumbermen, miners, or construction workers, or even in a settled town, many of the methods of the settlement are likely to find acceptance, and the settlement idea of neighborliness is fundamental to all happy and successful social life.

READING REFERENCES

DEVINE: _Principles of Relief_, pages 10-28, 171-181.

WARNER: _American Charities_, pages 301-393.

CONYNGTON: _How to Help_, pages 56-219.

HENDERSON: _Modern Methods of Charity_, pages 380-511.

HENDERSON: _Social Settlements._

ADDAMS: _Twenty Years at Hull House_, pages 89-153.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES

292. =The Schools of the City.=--An important function of city government and of other inst.i.tutions is the education of the people who make their home in the city or come to it to broaden their culture. The city provides for its young people as the country community does, by locating school-buildings within convenient reach of the people of every district, but on a much larger and usually a more efficient scale. Better trained teachers, better grading, a more modern equipment and well-proved methods give an advantage in education to the city child, though there are drawbacks in overcrowded buildings and narrow yards for play. The opportunities for social education are broader in the city, for the child comes into contact with many types of people, with a great variety of social inst.i.tutions, and with all sorts of activities. It is these advantages, together with the higher inst.i.tutions for study, that attract hundreds and sometimes thousands of students to the prominent social centres. The colleges and universities, the normal schools, the music and art inst.i.tutes and lecture systems are numerous and attract correspondingly.

293. =The Press as an Educator.=--The inst.i.tutions directly concerned with instruction are supplemented by other educational agencies. Among these is the press. The press is an inst.i.tution that exerts a mighty force upon every department of the city's life. It is at the same time a business enterprise and a social inst.i.tution. It is a public misfortune that the newspaper, the magazine, and the book publishing house is a private business undertaking, and often stands for cla.s.s, party, or sectarian interests before those of the whole of society.

There is always a temptation to sacrifice principle to policy, to publish distorted or half-true statements from selfish interest, and to prost.i.tute influence to individuals or groups that care little for the public welfare. The publication of a statement or narrative of a crime or other misdemeanor tends by suggestion to the imitation of the wrong by others; it is a well-known fact that a sensational story of suicide or murder is likely to provoke others in the same manner. It is a grave question whether the realistic fiction so much in vogue and published in such quant.i.ties is not a baneful text-book on modern society. But when it chooses the press becomes an instrument of immense value to the public. It can turn the light of publicity on dark and dirty places. It can and does provide a means of wise utterance on questions of the day. It keeps a record of the good as well as the evil that is done. It is a means of communication between local groups everywhere, for it publishes what everybody wants to know about everybody else. It introduces the antipodes to each other, and makes it possible for far-sundered groups to unite even internationally for a good cause. As the railroad binds together portions of a continent, so the press links the minds of human beings.

294. =A Metropolitan Newspaper.=--Take a metropolitan newspaper and see how it reflects the current life of society. Economic interests of buyer and seller are exploited in the advertising columns. In no other way could a merchant so persuasively hawk his wares or a purchaser learn so readily about the market. The wholesaler and jobber find their interests attended to in special columns provided particularly for them. Financial interests are cared for by stock-exchange quotations, news items, and advertis.e.m.e.nts. All kinds of social concerns are taken care of in the news columns, items collected at great expense from the four quarters of the globe. Gatherings for a great variety of purposes are recorded. Educational and religious interests are given s.p.a.ce, as well as sports and amus.e.m.e.nts; last Sunday's sermon jostles the latest scandal on Monday morning; weather probabilities and shipping news have their corners, as well as the fashion department and the cartoon. The newspaper is a moving picture of the world.

295. =The Value of the Press.=--The most valuable service rendered by the press is its education of the public mind, so that public opinion may register itself in intelligent action. It provides a forum for the discussion of issues that divide sects and parties, and helps to preserve religious freedom and popular government. Except that it is so frequently trammelled in uttering itself frankly on important public questions, it gives an indication of the trend of sentiment and so makes possible a forecast of future public action. The very variety of printed publications, from the sensational daily sheet to the published proceedings of a learned society, insures a healthy interchange of ideas that helps to level social inequalities and promotes a mutual understanding among all groups and grades of society. The cheapened process of book publication on a large scale, and the investment of large sums of money in the publishing business, with its mechanics of sale management as well as printing, has made possible an enormous output of literature on all subjects and has widened the range of general information in possession of the public.

The whole system of modern life would be impossible without the press.

296. =The Library and the Museum.=--In spite of the efficient methods used for selling the output of the press, large numbers of books would be little read were it not for the collections of books that are available to the public, either free or at small cost. The public library is an educative agency that serves its const.i.tuency as faithfully as the school and the press. Its presence for use is one of the advantages that the city has over the country, though the public library has been extended far within one or two decades. The child goes from home to school and widens the circle of his acquaintances in the community; through the daily newspaper the adult gets into touch with a far wider environment, reaching even across the oceans; in the library any person, without respect to age, color, or condition, if only he possess the key of literacy to unlock knowledge, can travel to the utmost limits of continents and seas, can dig with the geologist below the surface, or soar with the astronomer beyond the limits of aviation, can hob-n.o.b with ancient worthies or sit at the feet of the latest novelist or philosopher, and can learn how to rule empires from as good text-books as kings or patriarchs possess.

What the library does for intellectual satisfaction the museum and art-gallery do for aesthetic appreciation. They make their appeal to the love of beauty in form, color, or weave, and call out oftentimes the best efforts of an individual's own genius. Often the gift of one or more public-spirited citizens, they register a disposition to serve society that is sometimes as useful as charity. Philanthropy that uplifts the mind of the recipient is as desirable as benevolence that plans bodily relief; the soul that is filled has as much cause to bless its minister as the stomach that is relieved of hunger. The picture-galleries of Europe, the tapestries, the metal and wood work, the engravings, and the frescoes, are the precious legacy of the past to the present, not easily reproduced, but serving as a continual incentive to modern production. They set in motion spiritual forces that uplift and expand the human mind and spur it to future achievement.

297. =Music and the Drama.=--Music and the drama have a similar stimulating and refining influence when they are not debauched by a sordid commercialism. They strengthen the n.o.blest impulses, stir the blood to worthy deeds by their rhythmic or pictorial influence, unite individual hearts in worship or play, throb in unison with the sentiments that through all time have swayed human life. Often they have catered to the lower instincts, and have served for cheap amus.e.m.e.nt or entertainment not worth while, but concert-hall and theatre alike are capable of an educative work that can hardly be equalled elsewhere. When in combination they appeal to both eye and ear, they provide avenues for intellectual understanding and activity that neither school nor press can parallel. Recent mechanical inventions, such as automatic musical instruments and moving pictures, have added greatly to the range and effectiveness of music and the drama, but they only intensify and popularize the appeal to the senses. It is to be remembered that individual and social stimuli must be varied enough to touch men at all points and call out a response from every faculty of their nature. These arts, therefore, that make life real and socialize it and cheer men and women on their way, play a vital part in the education of society and deserve as serious consideration as the other educational agencies and inst.i.tutions that find a place in the social economy of the community. Numerous amateur musical and dramatic societies testify to the interest of the people in these refined arts.

298. =The Need of Social Centres.=--Books and pictures, music and the drama are so many mild stimulants to those who use and appreciate them, but there are large numbers of people who rarely read anything but the newspaper, and who attend only cheap entertainments. These people need a spur to high thoughts and n.o.ble action, but they do not move in the world of culture. They need a stronger stimulant, the tang of virile debate about questions that touch closely their daily concerns, discussions in which they can share if they feel disposed.

In large circles of the city's population there is a lack of facilities for such public discussion, and for that reason the people fall back on the prejudices of the newspapers for the formation of their opinions on public questions. Disputes sometimes wax warm in the saloon about the merits of a pugilist or baseball-player; questions of the rights of labor are aired in the talk of the trade-union headquarters; but the vital issues of city, state, and nation, and the underlying principles that are at stake find few avenues to the minds of the ma.s.s of the people. In the country the town meeting or the gathering at the district schoolhouse provides an occasional opportunity, or the grange meeting supplies a forum for its members, but even there the rank and file of the people do not talk over large questions often enough. In the city the need is great.

299. =The City Neighborhood.=--It is well understood that large cities have most of their public buildings and business structures in one quarter, and their residences in another; also that the character of the residential districts varies according to the wealth and culture of their inhabitants or the nationality and occupation to which they belong. The city is a coalition of semidetached groups, each of which has a unity of its own. The necessities of work draw all the people together down-town along the lines of streets and railways; now and then the different cla.s.ses are shaken together in elevators and subways; but when they are free to follow their own volition they flow apart. Those who are on terms of intimacy live in a neighboring street; the grocer from whom they buy is at the corner; the school where their children go is within a few blocks; the theatre they patronize or the church they attend is not far away; the physician they employ lives in the neighborhood. Except the few who get about easily in their own conveyances and have a wide acquaintance, city dwellers have all but their business interests in the district in which they live, and which is seldom over a square mile in extent.

Some munic.i.p.alities are coming to see that each district is a neighborhood in itself and needs all the democratic inst.i.tutions of a neighborhood. Among these belongs the a.s.sembly hall for free speech.

It may well become a centre for a variety of social purposes, but it is fundamentally important that it provide a forum for public discussion. As the rich man has his club where he may meet the globetrotter or the leader of public affairs distinguished in his own country, and as the woman's club of high-minded women has its own lecturers and celebrities of all kinds, so the working man and his wife have a right to come into contact with stimulating personalities who will talk to them and to whom they can talk back.

300. =Forum for Public Discussion.=--Such democratic gatherings fall into two cla.s.ses. There is the public lecture or address, after which an opportunity for questions and public discussion is given, and there is the neighborhood forum or town meeting, at which a question of general interest is taken up and debated in regular parliamentary fashion. In a number of cities both plans have been adopted. On a Sunday afternoon or evening, or at a convenient time on another evening of the week, a popular speaker addresses the audience on a theme of social interest, after it has been entertained for a half hour with music; following the address a brief intermission allows for relaxation, and then for an hour the question goes to the house, and free discussion takes place under the direction of the leader of the meeting. Sometimes series of this sort are supplied by churches or other social organizations; in that case many of the speakers are clergymen, and in some forums the topics are connected with religious or strictly moral interests; but even then the discussion is on the broad plane of the common concerns of humanity, and there is a zest to the occasion that the ordinary religious gathering does not inspire.

The second plan is modelled after the old-fashioned town meeting that was transplanted from the mother country to New England, and has spread to other parts of the United States. It is a gathering of all who wish to discuss freely some question that interests them all, and it is more strictly co-operative than the first plan, for there is no one speaker to contribute the main part of the debate, but each may make his own contribution, and by the power of his own persuasion win for his argument the decision of the meeting. Besides stimulating the interest of those who take part, such a debate is a most effective educator of the public mind in matters of social weal.

READING REFERENCES

HENDERSON: _Social Elements_, pages 228-253.

KING: _Social Aspects of Education_, pages 65-97, 264-290.

WARD: _The Social Center_, pages 212-251.

WOLFE: _The Lodging House Problem_, pages 109-114.

_Addresses and Proceedings of the National Education a.s.sociation, 1905_, pages 644-650, "Music as a Factor in Culture."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

THE CHURCH

301. =The Place of the Church in the Urban Community.=--In the city, as in the country, the religious instinct expresses itself socially through the inst.i.tution of the church or synagogue. Spiritual force cannot be confined within the limits of a single inst.i.tution; religion is a dynamic that permeates the life of society; yet in this age of specialization, and especially in a country like the United States, where religion is a voluntary affair, not to be entangled with the school or the State, religion has naturally exerted its influence most directly through the church. Charity and settlement workers are inspired by a religion that makes humanitarianism a part of its creed, and a large majority of them are church members, but as a rule they do not attempt to introduce any religious forms or exercises into their programmes. Most public-school teachers have their religious connections and recognize the important place of religion in moulding character, but religious teaching is not included in the curriculum because of the recognized principle of complete religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The result has been that religion is not consciously felt as a vital force among many people who axe not directly connected with an ecclesiastical inst.i.tution. Those who are definitely connected with the church in America contribute voluntarily to its expenses, sometimes even at personal sacrifice. Most people who have little religious interest realize the value of the mere presence of a meeting-house in the community as a reminder of moral obligations and an insurance against disorder. Its spire seems to point the way to heaven, and to make a mute appeal to the best motives and the highest ideals. The decline of the church is, therefore, regarded as a sign of social degeneracy.

302. =Worship and Church Attendance.=--The church exists in the city because it has certain specific functions to perform. To maintain public worship, to persuade to definite convictions and inspire to n.o.ble conduct, to furnish religious education, and to promote social reform are its essential responsibilities. Worship is a natural att.i.tude to the individual who is prompted by a desire to adjust himself to the universe and to obtain the peace of mind that follows upon the establishment of a right relationship. To most people it is easier to get into the proper atmosphere and spirit of worship in a public a.s.sembly, and they therefore are accustomed to meet at stated intervals and bow side by side as if in kinship together before the Unseen. Long-established habit and a superst.i.tious fear of the consequences that may follow neglect keep some persons regular in church attendance when they have no sense of spiritual satisfaction in worship. Others go to church because of the social opportunities that are present in any public gathering.

In recent years church attendance has not kept pace with the increasing population of the city. A certain pride of intellect and a feeling of security in the growing power of man over nature has produced an indifference to religion and religious teachers.

Multiplicity of other interests overshadows the ecclesiastical interests of the aristocracy; fatigue and hostility to an inst.i.tution that they think caters to the rich keeps the proletariat at home. In addition the tendency of foreigners is to throw off religion along with other compulsory things that belonged to the Old World life and to add to the number of the unchurched.