There is no reason why there should not be far greater uniformity than at present in nomenclature, and progress is already noticeable in the free interchange of experiences among various cities. If a broader work is to be under taken than that which is implied by the two titles first suggested, the choice would appear to lie between the I Cf. page 351 for a statement of the advantages of obtaining relief as it is needed, case by case, as an alternative to a relief fund. Such a society as here suggested may obtain and disburse relief on either plan. If it is deemed best to have a relief fund, it may still be possible to obtain relief, case by case, replacing in this way amounts temporarily advanced from the relief fund.
brief and expressive United Charities and the title which is perhaps more widely used than any other and may possi bly be regarded as somewhat more modest than the other, Charity Organization Society. The current abbreviation, C. 0. S., is familiar in national conferences, and is in not infrequent use both in England and America. The older title, Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, is admirable as a description, but is too cumbrous for com mon use and is apt to degenerate, as it has in some cities, into the infelicitous "poor association." To justify the name Associated Charities or United Charities, the society should occupy a unique and commanding position in the community. It should not be one among rivals, but should really be an agency which will bring into immediate inti mate association the charitable activities of the entire community. It has been suggested that the name Charity Organization Society implies some attitude of superiority on the part of those who are undertaking, as their .name suggests, to organize the charity of the community. If the society goes farther and offers to provide instruction for professional and volunteer workers in the social field, this again is thought to imply an assumption of superiority of knowledge on the part of those who offer themselves as teachers. Both of these criticisms rest upon a fallacy. The giving of instruction and the organization of charita ble endeavor are tasks for which some provision should be made. Those who are doing these things are by that fact debarred from undertaking other things which may be of equal or greater value. Even the college faculty does not lay claim to greater culture or wisdom than belongs to clergymen, lawyers, and artists, made up as these pro fessions are largely of men who have earlier been students in the university. The particular individuals who consti
tute the college faculty may be more or less capable than those who are their contemporaries in age. They are prob ably only the peers of the individuals who have previously been their associates. Some individuals become teachers of the youth of future generations, others take up other tasks. Neither the hand nor the foot is justified in claim ing to be the superior. And so of the task of organizing charity. To secure a division of work and joint effort, where that is advisable, is neither a higher nor a lower task than the doing of the work itself; and for a society to undertake the organization of charity is by no means to lay claim to a superior task. The name is a suitable one because it is already associated in the public mind with thoroughness of investigation, with coordination of agen cies, and cooperation among them, with adequacy of relief, with volunteer personal service for the poor, the suppression of mendicancy, and the promotion of social reforms. While it must assume whatever natural repug nance may exist to the idea of " organizing " so intangible and spiritual a thing as charity, it is quite possible to make it clear from the outset that organization is not mechanicalization; that organized charity is but the union of law and love, as it was formulated by Mark Hopkins in an eloquent passage before any charity organization soci ety had yet been established. " Law and love ! these are the two mightiest forces in the universe, and thus do we marry them. . . . As in all right marriage there is both contrariety and deep harmony. Law is stern, majestic, and the fountain of all order. Love is mild, winning, the fountain of all right spontaneity —that is, of the sponta neity that follows rational choice. Love without law is capricious, weak, mischievous ; opposed to law it is wicked. Law without love is unlovely. . . . Such a union is demonstrably the only condition of perfection for the indi vidual or for society, and when it shall be universally consummated the millennium will have come." The charity organization society pleads for law and for love. And thus we join them—organization and charity, law and love, mind and heart, the charitable impulse and the sensible action.