The Charity Organization Society not only insists on investigations, but on co-operation. On this point Mr. Devine has this to say: By co-operation is meant not merely agreement among various societies and organised agencies, upon general plans of co-operation, but rather co-operation in dealing with individual cases of distress upon the basis of facts as ascer tained by investigation. It involves, in other words, accept ance of the plan of relief which is calculated to remedy the defects or to supply the deficiencies that have been discovered. This may mean that each of the co-operating individuals or societies shall supplement the efforts of the others by con tributing part of the money or work needed. or it may mean that they will agree to a division of the work, each leaving to the other the part for which its facilities are adapted; or it may mean a division of the cases to be dealt with, each agreeing to leave entirely to the other such classes of individ uals or families whose needs are to be studied and adequately met by the agency to which they are assigned. One of the simplest forms of co-operation is that between the Church and the relief agency, secured by either directly from the other in the case of a given family, or secured by the agent of the Charity Organization Society from both. In this case the material needs should be supplied by the relief agency. and the Church should provide the spiritual over sight and the necessary formative influence/ or the children, and, if necessary, reformative influences for oldermembers of the family. It sometimes happens that the family has no need of reformation; that it contains within itself all the necessary resources for education and training, while the financial income alone is lacking, or not sufficient. Even in such circumstances, another friend may not be unwelcome in sickness or in trouble and in periods of unusual difficulty. Enlargement of social opportunities may all be entirely appropriate.
In order to carry out a scheme so compre hensive as this a machine was necessary, and charity organization made a machine, not merely to investigate objects of charity and to promote co-operation among all charitable agencies, but to keep a record of all work done in charity, and to employ individuals, com petent and trained, to do that work. It even
went further, and established schools for pro fessional social workers in charity, who receive pay for charitable work. Organized charity, by its insistence upon co-operation and by its intelligent discussion of all matters pertaining to charity, exerts a powerful influence upon the i State in its relation to charity. There can be no step backward by the State in its treatment of its dependents, which organized will not detect and seek to stop. The experience • of its years of struggle to benefit the poor must be made known to officials having charge of charitable institutions and must be practically considered. The good done by organized charity is not confined to the relief that it gives indi viduals, or to the fraud that it detects, or to the imposition that it prevents, but it extends to the making of public opinion about chari table matters which forces good government in public charitable institution's.
State legislatures appoint State boards of charities whose duty it is to visit and inspect all institutions, whether State, county, munici pal, incorporated or not incorporated, which are of a charitable, eleemosynary, correctional or reformatory character, the legislatures mak ing provision for the education and support of the blind, the deaf and dumb and juvenile de linquents as seems proper, and recognizing and supporting the efforts of any county, city, town or village to provide for the care, support, maintenance and secular education of inmates of orphan asylums, homes for dependent chil dren or correctional institutions, whether un der public or private control. Representative of the numerous forms of public charity and of the co-operation and efficiency attained un der a city plan is the list of societies and organizations represented by delegates at the annual New York city conferences, and also representative of the different complex prob lems involved is the list of subjects discussed (see CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS, THE NA TIONAL CONFERENCE OF). Consult of the New York City Conference of Charities and Corrections> (Albany 1910 et seq.).