One of the simplest forms of cooperation is that between the church and the relief agency, secured by either directly from the other in the case of a given family, or secured by the agent of the charity organization society from both. In this cooperation material needs should be supplied by the relief agency, and the church should provide the neces sary spiritual oversight and the necessary formative in fluences for the children, and, if necessary, reformative influences for older members of the family. It sometimes happens that the family has no need of reformation, that it contains within itself all the necessary resources for edu cation and training, while the financial income alone is lacking or insufficient. Even under such circumstances the companionship of new friends may not be amiss ; con solation in sickness or trouble, encouragement in periods of unusual difficulties, enlargement of social opportunities, may all be entirely appropriate.
This involves therefore the most agreeable form of that volunteer personal service to which reference has been made as a prominent feature of the charity organization societies. The character of this service is very different from that performed by the old-fashioned volunteer almo ner who has been so largely displaced by the trained visitor. The old almoner went about armed with a little note book in which he wrote down what groceries and how much fuel would be needed in the ensuing month, or made an entry that no groceries or fuel would be needed. These books were checked off at a central office and the requisitions honored if they were deemed reasonable and the state of the treasury permitted. The whole plan was calculated to fix the idea of material relief in the visitor's mind to the exclusion of every other idea. In the newer societies which make use of both district agent and friendly visitor, the latter is sent upon very difficult errands, errands which she can perform better than a professional worker, — and it is understood that relief questions are in the hands of the agent.
One illustration of the kind of work which falls to the friendly visitor has been cited, but in most cases, besides this agreeable and comparatively easy form of friendly visiting, there will be a need for the perform ance of sterner tasks. Habits of intemperance, shiftless ness, and foolish expenditure will need to be broken up. Downright ignorance and stupidity will need to be overcome. It is necessary to give wise counsel concern ing employment, and to suggest readjustment of domes tic arrangements. Such suggestion and instruction from one who has succeeded in life, proffered to those who are less successful, might easily become an impertinence and would ordinarily be resented, except from those who are already on an intimate footing. Application for assistance, however, when made either to an individual stranger or at the bureau of a relief agency, is in itself a confession of complete or partial failure in the industrial struggle, and, although it may be accompanied by no personal fault, it opens the door for demanding complete confidence as to all the circumstances which have caused such partial or com plete failure. Such application is ordinarily made for the
first time only at some crisis in life which makes confidence easy, sweeping away the ordinary barriers of reserve. The friendly visitor, whether supplied by the church or directly by the charity organization society, must appreciate the value of such opportunities and utilize them to gain an insight into the source of the new neighbor's troubles, lay ing here the foundations for helpful personal relations which are to be continued until the causes of dependence have been removed, if they are removable, or until the plan for supplying any necessary deficiency shall have been thoroughly worked out and put into successful operation.
The working out of such a plan, involving, as we have seen, investigation and cooperation — of which one element should always be friendly personal interest and another oftentimes temporary or continuous material relief — the working out of such a plan and carrying it through with the aid of the friendly visitor, of the relief agency, and, not least, of the family or individual to be helped — the working out of a definite plan for meeting the precise difficulties to be overcome, and the long-continued personal oversight which such a plan involves, is what is meant by the organization of charity, and it is the peculiar task of the charity organization societies, or of the relief societies and individuals who do their work on behalf of the needy in accordance with the principles of organized charity.
One axiom upon which it has been necessary to insist far more strongly than to reasonable people would seem necessary is that relief must be efficient and adequate. Indiscriminate almsgiving, practised through the cen turies, seems to have obscured certain elementary and extremely obvious truths. That giving money or the necessities of life, without return, to persons who are leading vicious and useless lives, is, in effect, manufactur ing vice and degradation ; that it is a travesty upon the name of charity to give a dollar which, by barely sustain ing life for a short time, outside a suitable institution, will frustrate the efforts which friends already interested in the beneficiary are making to induce him to accept decent shelter and provision of the necessaries of life within such an institution ; that the giving or withholding of relief should be decided primarily with reference to its probable effect upon the one to whom it is given, and that relief should not be given which is directly harmful, in the vain hope that it will in some way promote the personal sal vation of the one who gives ; and, finally, that charity remains a duty even though one may have made many mistakes in its ministrations, are among these elementary truths.