For them, therefore, if for any, the state might wisely make such provision as is made for soldiers and for those who have served the community in certain branches of the civil service. Unless and until some such provision is made, there should be great liberality on the part of the charitable public in meeting the needs of disabled home less women ; but this provision should, of course, take account of the efforts made by the applicant to provide for her own needs. If there has been frugality and industry, and a disposition to help others, it may be anticipated that more agreeable forms of relief can be supplied than if these qualities have been lacking. An impossible standard, however, should not be set up, and the principle is that reasonable assurance of care in case of unavoidable mis fortune will operate as a motive to thrift, rather than the contrary. It is quite possible that some of those who are now inmates of almshouses throughout the country could be removed and cared for with greater personal consider ation without in the least undermining character or dis couraging prudence and application in the younger. It is certain that greater consideration, increased respect for individual likes and dislikes, and in general a higher standard of comfort in the almshouses, is compatible with every necessary precaution against pauperizing the com munity. This is a danger which is to be guarded against by discrimination in admission, by diligent inquiry for relatives, and by individualizing those who are admitted, rather than by withholding the comforts and decencies to which applicants have been accustomed.
Among the unmarried women and widows who apply for relief, there will be some who are of vicious character, or who are so addicted to drink or other stimulants that only reformatory discipline and perhaps medical treatment will be of any avail. In the plea that has been made for special consideration for the protection of homeless girls and women, these needs must not be ignored. Sternness and decision in applying the only remedies from which there is any hope of success are as essential here as in dealing with homeless men.
IV. It is astounding that among applicants for relief there is occasionally found the case of a young native-born, able-bodied, unencumbered married couple. The natural inclination of one to whom such an application is made is to deliver an incisive and stimulating lecture, and send the applicants unceremoniously about their business, and, on the whole, perhaps no more judicious treatment could be suggested. Even when there is a handicap of of physical incapacity, of ignorance of the language, or of lack of acquaintance in the neighborhood, a very conserva tive course with reference to material relief is advisable. Those who remove to a new community, especially if it is to a foreign country with strange language and customs, assume a responsibility which for the common good must largely be left upon their own shoulders. In casting aside
the acquaintances, friendships, and other social ties which are so often of direct advantage in solving the problem of earning a living, a risk is necessarily assumed, and it will be mischievous to implant the idea that this risk is less than it really is.
V. Accident, illness, or some sudden shifting of indus trial conditions may justify relief for a married couple, and in old age the fact that both man and wife have survived will create no presumption against assistance, if the condi tions otherwise demand it. The assumption that the mere existence of children in the family gives a claim for relief which would otherwise be denied, is one to which may be traced a vast amount of harmful giving. The test is not the number of children or the presence of any other single condition in the composition of the family group ; it is rather a question as to whether the family is helpable ; whether any radical relief is possible ; whether any benefi cial result can be accomplished. If the relief perpetuates unwholesome or vicious conditions, it is equally to be con demned whether applied to a childless couple or to a fam ily with many children ; whether applied to the old or to the young ; whether given to a dispossessed widow with small children, or to a homeless man.
Opportunities for industrial training leading to self support need not be denied to single men or women, or to married couples without children. There is no reason why the expense of such training, however, should not, if practi cable, be thrown upon the beneficiaries. The problem is different from that of training children, the product of whose labor can ordinarily have but slight market value.
In institutions for children, sound educational policies are usually incompatible with attempts to make an income from the product of the industries employed in the train ing of the children. Adult men and women, however, may more readily be put at employment in which the deficien- . cies of their earlier education may be made good, habits of application and industry developed, and even some de gree of skill attained; while at the same time the product of the work done may be made to meet the entire expense of such training, while affording a bare living wage to those who are trained.
For aged couples there are in some cities private homes, and there is also a tendency, which is to be encouraged, to provide accommodation for aged couples in the public almshouse. With the safeguards to which attention has been repeatedly called elsewhere, there is no need of the inhumanity of separating husband and wife when they become dependent upon the public for self-support.