There are two persistent delusions from which we need thoroughly to free our minds. One of these is that there is something meritorious in the mere act of giving relief, regardless of the need for it and regardless of the adapt ability of the particular form of relief to the need. The other is that the sole or principal danger is that the relief extended is likely to pauperize the individual aided, and that therefore an elaborate series of precautions must be devised to enable relief to be given safely. We are accustomed to think of every charitable act and of all mis sionary effort as beyond measure of price, as precious and praiseworthy beyond human calculation. Entire candor, however, and sober reflection demand a revision of these estimates. Every charitable intent and every missionary impulse are indeed of infinite value to those who feel such impulse and perform such act ; but, concretely, from the standpoint of one whose needs have given rise to the impulse and act, their value may be very slight indeed. The interests of humanity, and especially of those who need effective aid, are paramount, and many things done from good motives are injurious and not helpful. Not all men and women are by nature, or can easily be made to become, effective practical workers in a charity organi zation society, or a social settlement, or a day nursery, or the social activities of the church. When, therefore, a limited number, however small, find themselves by an irresistible inner call, by a consciousness of the power to accomplish, set apart for the reclamation of the social debtors and the creation of social conditions which shall lessen the number of the dependent, there is greater cause for felicitation than if a wave of superficial interest sweeps over the community leaving little but a vague unrest as a sign of its passing.
The second error of which we should strive to be free is that of fixing attention exclusively on the safeguards, necessarily more or less artificial, with which we seek to surround our charity in order that it may not pauperize. Perhaps it will best aid us in reaching a right perspective to be reminded that people become dependent in other ways than by receiving relief. To be born and nurtured among squalid and indecent living conditions, to have the physical strength undermined by disease, by undernu trition and abuse, to be given a perverted education in a school of vice, to be deprived of suitable parental care, to be compelled to struggle hopelessly for the support of one's family against adverse industrial and social sur roundings over which the individual can exert no effec tive control, to become enslaved by drink or other ani mal appetites, are dangers as great, some of them indeed far greater, than to be given unearned money. The danger of being pauperized by relief is a real one, but it should not become so exaggerated as to blind us to other dangers, nor what is much more likely, should it lead us to underestimate the need for relief or the beneficent result which it may accomplish.
Modern charity, whether inspiring individual acts of generosity or concerted movements of great social signifi cance, differs so widely from the medimval type that it is difficult not to feel some sympathy for what is probably the vain attempt to find a new name for it. This modern charity is distinctly social, as contrasted with the indi vidualistic character of earlier almsgiving ; it is demo cratic, as contrasted with the aloofness of the giver of the doles ; it is constructive, as contrasted with the disin tegrating and demoralizing effect of impulsive gifts.
Relief funds, under the influence of the modern spirit, are no longer to be regarded as sums forever set apart to be expended in meeting an annually recurring number of cases of destitution of particular kinds, merely because those cases fall within the stipulated categories. With
this idea in mind, great apprehension not unnaturally arises at the creation of any large relief fund, because ex perience has shown that in almost any community the num ber of unfortunates of the class for whom it was intended will readily arise to absorb the entire available fund. The modern idea of relief funds is different. They are regarded as sums of money from the expenditure of which certain defi nite results are to be obtained. By caring for consumptives, for example, in a rational way, and adopting suitable sup plementary measures, the scourge of tuberculosis is to be eradicated and further expenditures for the relief of con sumptives thus made superfluous. By providing for crip pled children in appropriate hospitals, or at least under competent surgical advice, a large proportion are to be cured, and hand in hand with this care is to go such edu cational and sanitary work as shall greatly reduce the number of preventable cases. A large expenditure, com prehensively planned and made with courage and de termination, thus takes the place of a bungling and inadequate expenditure which reaches results rather than causes, and which must be continued indefinitely because the sources of distress remain untouched. The danger of a relief fund is reduced to a minimum if it may be freely used to attack the evil on all sides, and if those who man age it are inspired by at least the possibility of accomplish ing definite results. It is not solely a question of the amount of the available fund. The large expenditure to which reference has been made necessarily includes a very considerable outlay for the personal oversight and intelli gent direction through which alone the fund becomes in any genuine sense a relief fund. Effective control is less practicable in the case of families that are aided in their own homes than with inmates of institutions, but a certain degree of control and cooperation can always be secured if there is trained and competent service.
Modern charity has invaded the field of municipal and state administration, influencing the use of public funds here again, however, not for palliative, but for thorough going remedial measures. It is not that government has been asked to extend its operations into many new fields, but rather that in the tasks which have longest been rec ognized as appropriate public functions there shall be a new spirit and new standards of efficiency. The care of the dependent poor, the provision of parks and play grounds, sanitary inspection of dwellings, elementary education, correctional and reformatory work, and even certain aspects of ordinary police duty, are now subjected to the searching scrutiny of practical workers in charitable societies, who insist upon some positive evidences of the modern spirit of brotherhood and humanity on the part of those who are chosen as the servants of the community.
And so modern charity is aggressive, clear-sighted, practical ; mingling with its pity for human woe a knowl edge of the resources of modern science for its alleviation, and finding for all the injustice and oppression that exists some redress in law or in an enlightened public opinion. In the following chapter, the attempt will be made to set forth more concretely the conception of the standard of living to which we have given a central place in the formu lation of the general theory of a relief policy.