2 Richmond, " What is Charity Organization ? " Charities Review, Vol. IX, p. 496.
into operation ; to organize relief in individual cases when relief should come from various sources personal to the ap plicant or otherwise ; and finally, by the employment of the spare hours of all who are willing to do any amount of charitable work, gradually to improve the character of all charitable work done in the community. This is more difficult, and in many instances far more discouraging work than that of disbursing relief. It is for this reason that a wise worker has said that charity organization is not a work to which any man should put his hand unless he is prepared to give to it some measure of devotion ; that it is hard work, requiring time and thought and patience and judgment. It is absolutely necessary work, and the merit of the charity organization societies is that they have not merely talked about it, but have provided a practicable and definite plan by which it can be, and by which in a large number of communities it has been, in a very notable degree, performed.
It will not be necessary to describe the form of govern ment and of organization prevailing in the various soci eties,' but there is one feature characteristic of all except the smaller societies which is of special importance. This is the district committee through which the constructive work of the society on behalf of the families is done. In the smaller societies, where it is not necessary to divide the territory to be covered into districts, there is, neverthe less, usually a committee whose functions are identical with the district committee of the larger societies. The func tions of such a committee cannot be better described than in the following paragraphs from the pen of Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell, upon whose initiative the New York society was founded, and who has contributed more to the theory and to the practice of organized charity than any one else in America : " The reason for the formation of district committees' is to arouse a local interest in the work and to break up the great city into what Dr. Chalmers calls manageable portions of the civic territory,' because these smaller divi sions appeal more strongly to the imagination of the worker I See, however, Appendix I, Constitution of a charity organization society.
than the whole can possibly do. To quote Dr. Chalmers again, There is a very great difference in respect to its practical influence between a task that is indefinite and a task that is clearly seen to be overtakeable. The one has the effect to paralyze, the other to quicken exertion.' "The first condition of an ideal district committee is, then, that it should have a domain not too large in which to work. Further, that it should be composed of resi dents in that domain' who unite together to take charge of its public interests and to help such poor persons as are found, after inquiry, to need help. Its special functions are to destroy pauperism within the boundaries of the district, and also to concern itself with all measures that will make the lives of persons not paupers, but suffering from poverty, more bearable.
"In dealing with individual cases of pauperism and of poverty, the main characteristic of its work is that it en deavors to find adequate relief for each person — that is, that it seeks to cure, and not to alleviate merely, the dis tress that appeals to it for aid, and as almost all distress of the kind that does appeal to strangers for aid is of a kind that has its cause in some defect of character, the building up of character is (or ought to be) one of the first objects of a district committee in all its relations with individuals. It is because this character building is the distinctive feature of the committee's dealings with indi viduals that what are called friendly visitors' are of such tremendous importance, for it is only individuals who can influence individuals. There cannot be the slightest taint of mechanicalism or officialism in this work, and for every miserable, weak, hopeless person or family there ought to be a helping, strong, wise person to undertake their education." 2 1 While residence in the district is desirable it is possible, as Mrs. Low ell's own district in New York City abundantly demonstrates, to have a very effective committee composed partly and even mainly of those who become personally interested in the territory but have their homes else where.
2 New York Charity Organization Society, Seventeenth Annual Report.