CHARITY ORGANIZATION SO CIETY. The title given to numerous civic associations in the United States and Canada organized for the relief and cure of poverty, some designated under the alternative titles of associated charities, bureau of charities and united charities. As described under TIES, PUBLIC (q.v.), out of the feeling of the necessity for general co-operation in charity, or ganized charity has grown. To every student of sociology the conviction comes that, as in all departments of life, organization, law and or der, efficiency is essential in the administra tion of charity. The first modern step in this direction was the formation of relief societies, designed to replace indiscriminate alms-giving by individuals, and intended to increase the funds available for the help of classes that might have been neglected. Then followed the associations for improving the condition of the poor, which were not to deal in relief, except in so far as relief might tend to the permanent elevation of those relieved. The relief societies increased in numbers, but theie organizations for the improvement of the condition of the poor generally lost sight of the fundamental purpose of the organization and developed into mere relief societies. Neither filled the want, and so a third form of organized charity came into existence usually designated "The Charity Or ganization Society.° which developed what is generally known as the city plan. The city plan in a broad sense covers the whole program in which and by which a community attempts definitely and conscientiously to prepare and control its development. The object is to ad vance civilization by making cities capable of maintaining and reproducing a high type of human life, an object absolutely essential both to city and national life. No considerable pro portion of the expense of public charity can or will be borne out of any public treasury, except that of the city. Therefore it becomes almost exclusively a problem of municipal planning and finance to provide for the ac tivities which a rising social conscience in a community demands. No great public policy has ever resulted from the uncontrolled con flict of purely selfish and individual aims or the indifferent, easy-going laissez-faire attitude of the average taxpayer. To quote an histori cal example, the awful excesses of the Parisian starvelings of the French Revolution can be traced to the callous indifference of the royal parasitic, tax-imposing authorities, and unless this important problem is wholeheartedly looked after by the disinterested and generally unappreciated group of earnest social workers it is apt to be neglected. The cure for poverty lies not in the hands of the poor but in those of their more fortunate brethren. Since the
first National Conference of Boards of Chari ties and Corrections, held in New York city 20-22 May 1874, and annually afterward in different localities, charity organization soci eties have multiplied in over 150 cities in the United States and interchange of ideas among affiliated relief societies is maintained and the working problems, ways and means and results of each year are discussed annually by means both of city and national conferences. On the general outline methods of a typical city asso ciation the evidence of Edward T. Devine, Ph.D., general secretary of the Charity Organ ization Society of the City of New York, founded in 18U, may be taken as authoritative. The first thing done is to investigate, and he says in his book, Practice of Charity' : In modern organised charity, investigation has come to mean something more than it had meant for those who had proclaimed the necessity for discriminating between the deserving and the undeserving. Investigation is not solely or even primarily for the purpose of thwarting the expectations of imposters. It is not even merely a device for preventing the waste of charity upon unworthy ob1ects, in order that it may be used for those who are really in need. Investigation is rather an instrument for the inteftent treatment of distress. It is analogous to the diagnosis of the physician who does not attempt to treat a serious malady from a glance at its superficial indications, but who carefully inquiries into the hidden and early manifestations of the disease, and seeks to know as much as possible of the com plicating influences with which he must reckon in effecting a cure. Investigation, therefore, while it should never be inconsiderate or blundering, or heartless, must be painstaking. conscientious and honest. This kind of an investigation has been developed as one feature of organized charity and its possibilities have been only m..tually unfolded, and they are realized only gradually in the experience of individual workers. A bad investigation may be too full or too meagre, or it may be neither. The investigation is made not for its own sake, but as a neowary step in the careful remedy of the defects or misfortunes that have brought the applicant to seek relief. In the majority of cases, if the investigation is wise and complete, it will reveal personal sources and facts which will enable the situation to be met without calling in outside aid, and in this way, in the large proportion of instances, investigation might be said to become a substitute for relief.