of humane and public-spirited counsels. The lessening of the poor rates was made practicable by and was not the principal cause of the progress of the period.
The reform of the English Poor Law is found to be merely one step in a series of related changes occurring in a particular epoch, and under exceptional circumstances not likely to be renewed. It requires historical interpre tation, and is as far as possible from universal precedent. The laxity and demoralization to which attention has so frequently been called, is not to be looked upon merely as an exhibition of human nature certain to be made whenever relief is offered on easy terms, even though it may readily be granted that the offer of relief upon easy terms is dangerous and reprehensible. The abnormal re lief-giving may even to some extent be ascribed to greater actual need, caused in turn by the war taxes, the primitive methods of agriculture, industry, and commerce, and other unreformed features of the English social life of the period. The present plea is that the naive interpretation of the relation between pauperism and the Poor-Law ad ministration should be discarded, and that if that experi ence is to be utilized, it should be studied in its entirety, due weight being given to such other causes as have been known to be operating to form the habits and determine the character of the people. The causes of poverty are
diverse and elusive and it is always profitable to examine them in a new light.
In the following chapters an outline is given of the methods by which American communities have dealt with their relief problems. It must be confessed that they have shown comparatively little originality or independent de velopment, although exceptions should be made in favor of the movement inaugurated by Robert M. Hartley in the state boards of originating in Massa chusetts in 1863, the widening scope of the charity organi zation societies in recent years, and the liberal emergency relief measures which have usually been adopted at times of extraordinary 1 See chapter on private outdoor relief.
2 See " Supervision and Education in Charity," by Dr. J. R. Macmillan, 1903. 8 See Part IV.