tended to become a strictly voluntary institution ; that vagrants and other able-bodied persons are no longer nominally received in it, but are rather subjects for the discipline of a correctional institution. Municipal lodg ing-houses and work tests of wood yards, and other means of providing temporary employment for able-bodied, des titute persons, have eliminated still others from the almshouse population. Nearly all those that remain are definitely removed by physical disability from the possi bility of self-support ; moreover, we have an instinctive feeling that aged persons, if by reason of destitution they become a public charge, may be treated with a degree of consideration quite different from that properly accorded to the middle-aged, able-bodied, voluntary pauper. The inference to be drawn from these considerations is that the bulk of our almshouse inmates are dependents rather than paupers, using the latter word not in its legal, but in its ordinary, significance. The distinction between de pendence and pauperism, as drawn by Mr. Folks, is that dependency carries with it no suggestion of reproach, while pauperism implies a willingness and a desire to re ceive charitable aid when such aid is not a necessity — a preference for accepting the public bounty rather than for making all reasonable effort for self-support.
In accordance with this idea, Mr. Folks, as Commissioner of Public Charities, changed the name of the almshouse of New York City to The Home for Aged and Infirm, and made a number of changes in the construction of build ings, in the amount and variety of diet, in the character of clothing, and in the introduction of healthful and bene ficial employment of inmates, and in the discipline of the institutions under his charge, which were in accordance with the theory above set forth. The only argument which can be advanced against this position, in view of the historical development of the almshouse and other institutions for the care of dependent adults, is that a community, by providing thus liberally and equally for those whose past lives have been creditable, and for those who have a less favorable history, removes a deterrent force from the feet of younger persons who are now choosing their path. This objection has, however, little real weight. Life in the almshouse will hardly become so attractive that a course which leads toward it will deliberately be chosen for that reason. Against any slight effect which a higher standard of physical comfort in the almshouse may exercise may be brought considera tions a thousandfold more weighty and less fanciful. To quote again from the paper by Mr. Folks, to which refer ence has been made, there are " probably in the lives of a very large proportion of almshouse inmates some chapters that had better be left unread. But to what extent, after all, should this affect our care of them in the few remain ing years of their lives ? Now that the years of activity, with their opportunities and temptations, their struggles for existence are over, now that the ability for self support is undeniably gone, no matter how, shall we not recognize them all, if without means and with no rela tives able to support, as entitled to a treatment at the hands of the public which shall be quite different from that accorded in correctional institutions for able-bodied vagrants ? Death is the great leveller, and, as it casts its shadow before, those who enter it tend to lose the charac teristics that have marked certain individuals as different from others in their social relations. As, in caring for
children, we take little account of their good or ill deserts, but only of their needs, may we not follow a similar course in caring for those in their second child hood? Not by any means that the same treatment shall be measured out for all, but that differences of care shall be based on present tasks, habits, and capacities, and not past deserts." Along, however, with this recognition of the legitimacy of considerate treatment for the aged and infirm who are public charges, there must go an equally clear recognition of the fact that such care is necessarily expensive, judged by the standard of expenditures for almshouse inmates which has prevailed. Not only do the various items of maintenance become greater, but the cost of service is in creased. Superintendents and subordinates of indifferent caliber may carry out a routine system of administration, but to create a pleasant environment and to meet the vari ous needs of individual dependents calls for a high order of ingenuity, sympathy, and wisdom. The character of the service, the architecture of the buildings, the grouping of patients, and the very language used in conversation be tween officers and patients, must all bear evidence of the new spirit. It must be understood that those who are in charge of the home for the aged and infirm are no longer dealing primarily with pauperism, but, like the officers of institutions for the care of children, the insane, and the defective, are dealing with dependents. The causes which make for the decrease or increase of pauperism are not un der the control of those who are caring for a particular class of dependents, but are much more likely determined by the acts of ordinary citizens who may scarcely be con scious of the existence of such institutions. The attack upon pauperism must be made in the schools, in the churches, in the public press, and at the ballot-box. Those who control admission and discharge from the home for the aged are, it is true, responsible for one among many influences for good and evil. The transfer of the alms house, by the successive removal of many classes to whom it once gave shelter, and the creation of a well-managed home for the aged and infirm from the remnant, may well be regarded with equanimity by those to whom pauperism appears to be an unmitigated curse.
It is not impossible that we may see arise as a supple ment, or as an alternative to the almshouse and the private homes for the aged, a systematic plan for boarding out aged infirm persons, on the plan already in successful operation for boarding dependent children. With care ful selection of homes, and competent subsequent super vision, such a plan might succeed admirably. These features would prevent the abuses which led to the abo lition of the earlier system of boarding paupers by con tract in the earlier half of the nineteenth century.' 1 See p. 284.