Evolution Series, No. 44 May 15, 1893 FACTORS IN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION STUDIES IN APPLIED SOCIOLOGY LECTURES AND DISCUSSIONS BEFORE THE BROOKLYN ETHICAL ASSOCIATION "Admirably adapted to popularize evolution views." HERBERT SPENCER EVOLUTION OF CHARITIES AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS BY PROF. AMOS G. WARNER, PH. D. Superintendent of Public Charities, Washington, 1). C NEW YORK D. APPLE TON AND COMPANY I, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET 1893 Copyright, 1893, by TIIK BROOKLYN ETHICAL ASSOCIATION Entered at the New York, N. Y., Post-Office, as secoml-class mail matter D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. E EVOLUTION SERIES, KOS. i TO 17. Popular Lectures and Discussions before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. VOLUTION IN SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND ART, With 3 Portraits. Large I2mo. Cloth, $2.00. CONTENTS. Form and Color in Nature. By WIL- LIAM POTTS. Optics as related to Evolution. By L. A. W. ALLEMAN, M. D. Evolution of A rt. By JOHN A. TAYLOR. Evolution of Architecture. By Rev. By EDWARD D. THADDEUS B. By FKANCIS E. A 'fred Ruts / Wallace. COPE, Ph. D. Ernst Haeckel. By WAKEMAN. The Sclent 'fie Method. ABBOTT, Ph. D. Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy. By BENJAMIN F. UNDERWOOD. Evolution of Chemistry. By ROBEKT G. ECCI.ES, M. D. Evolution of Elrctric and Magnetic Physics. By- ARTHUR E. KEN- NELLY. Evolution of Botany. By FRED J. _WULLING, Ph. G. Zoo'o^y ns related to Evolution. By Rev. JOHN C. KIMBALL. " The addresses i lished in America and are delivered fo JOHN W. CHADWICK. 'Evolution i cfSculptiire. By Prof. THOMAS DAVIDSON Evolution of Painting. By FORREST P. KTNDELL. Evolution of Music. By Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON. Life a> a Fine Art. By LEWIS G. JANFS, M. D. The Jipctrine i>f Involution : its Scope and Influence. By Prof. JOHN FISKE. M EVOLUTION SERIES, NOS. 18 TO 34. AN AND THE STATE. Studies in Applied Sociology. With Index. Large I2mo. Cloth, $2 oo. CONTENTS. The Duty of a Public Spirit. By E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, I). D.,LL. D. The Study of Applied Sociology. By ROBERT G. ECCLES, M. D. Representative Government. By EDWIN D. MEAD. Suffrage and the Ballot. By DANIEL S. REMSEN. The Land Problem. By Prof. OTIS T. MASON. The Problem of City Government. By Dr. LEWIS G. JANES. Taxation and Revenue : The Free- Trade View. By THOMAS G. SHEARMAN. Taxation and Revenue : The Protec- tioni't View. By Prof. GEOKGE GUNTON. The Monetary Problem. By WILLIAM POTTS. The Immigration Problem. By Z. SlD- NKV SAMPSON. Evolution of the Afric-American. By Rev. SAMUEL J. BARROWS. The Race Problem in the South. By Prof. JOSEPH LE CONTE. Education and Citizenship. By Rev. JOHN W. CHADWICK. The Democratic Party. By EDWARD M. SHEPARD. The Republican Party. By Hon. Ros- WELL G. HORR. The Independent in Politics. By JOHM A. TAYIOR. Mortil Questions in Politics. By Rev. JOHN C. KIMBALL. "These studies in applied sociology are exceptionally interesting in their field." Cincinnati Times-Star. "Will command the attention of the progressive rtudent of politics." Pittsburg Chronicle- Telegraph. Separate Lectures front either volume, 10 cents each. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., I, 3, & 5 Bond Street. EVOLUTION OF CHARITIES AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS BY AMOS G. WARNER, PH. D. PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS IN LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR CNIVER8ITY LATE SUPERINTENDENT OF CHARITIES, WASHINGTON, D. C., ETC. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: Spencer's Principles of Sociology and Principles of Ethics ; Faw- cett's Pauperism, its Causes and Remedies; Eden's State of the Poor; Mrs. Lowell's Public Relief and Private Charity ; Wayland's Outdoor Relief and Tramps ; Riis's How the Other Half Lives ; McCulloch's The Tribe of Ishmael, a Story of Social Degradation (address before the National Conference of Charities and Correction, 1888) ; Elizabeth Bisland's London Charities, Cosmopolitan, July, 1891 ; Dr. Seaman's Social Waste of a Great City, Science, vol. viii, p. 283. SRLF URL OC / EVOLUTION OF CHARITIES AND CHARI- TABLE INSTITUTIONS. BY AMOS G. WARNER, PH. D. How NATURAL SELECTION OPERATES IN RACE IMPROVEMENT. NEXT to its efficiency as a means of race improvement, the most striking characteristic of natural selection is its enormous wastefulness. Heedless of the lapse of time, prod- igal of life and indifferent to suffering, the forces of Na- ture-apart-from-man work out surely, but at fearful cost, the differentiation and improvement of species. A hun- dred different characteristics may be essential to the survival of a given organism under given conditions, and to fail in one essential is as surely fatal as to fail in all. For a defect in any one of many essentials the punishment of Nature is death. If a given person, fitted in all other ways to pro- mote the advancement of a race, can not resist an attack of small-pox, that person, setting aside conscious effort to pre- vent the disease, must die, and so must perish all who are similarly weak until the race shall be made up of persons impervious to this disease. If a young man who is fitted in all other ways for high success under the conditions of mod- ern life has neglected to learn to swim, and then permits himself to fall into deep water, Nature calmly eliminates him as one of the unfit. If the population of a thriving town is indiscreet enough to live beneath a reservoir not adequately strong, Nature hurls over them the waters of a Conemaugh flood, and all that quantity of prosperous and useful life is obliterated, merely to give to other communi- ties a hint that they must employ engineers more competent or more honest. From the extermination of young codfish to the decay and disappearance of the races of men, nonsentient Nature operates in the same successful but remorseless way. The wolf that can not bear starvation, or the Englishman that can not bear the tropic heat of India, must pay the penalty of death for their respective weaknesses. But early in the de- 256 Evolution of Charities. velopment of living beings instincts appear which tend to economize time and life in the process of evolution. One of the earliest instincts of this sort is that which prompts ani- mals to care for their young. Some shield is interposed between the helpless infants of the lower orders and the re- morseless operations of nonsentient Nature. In the higher orders of life the sentiment extends beyond the family, and an instinctive desire to preserve the life of others defeats the uneconomical ruthlessness of Nature. Thus comes in what may be called instinctive selection as opposed to natu- ral selection in a narrow sense. The charitable impulse, the desire to help the destitute to prolong life and make it happier and fuller, has, until recently, been an instinct only. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN SELECTION. Finally there has been introduced an element which may be termed rational selection. It comes to be perceived that those who, for some reason, are not capable of coping with the local and temporary conditions which surround them, may yet be of great use to the race, if preserved from Nature or from instinct by the conscious and purposeful intervention of man. It thus happens that we practice vaccination that the scourge of small-pox may not run its former course and harden the race only after it has destroyed the larger part of it. We see, or think we see, that the time of the race can be better employed than in becoming inured to small- pox, and we modify the process of natural selection in order that the process of evolution may take a short cut toward its final goal. For similar reasons, if it be possible, we throw a life-preserver to a drowning man that all the energy and time that had been spent in rearing him may not be wasted merely because he did not know how to swim. We send re- lief to Johnstown in order that cold and famine may not supplement the devastation of the flood. We hold it to be our business so to modify conditions as to make certain the survival of those who are fit from the standpoint of race improvement. As Professor Ward puts it, "th environ- ment transforms the animal, while man transforms the en- vironment." " So we, considering everywhere Great Nature's purpose in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear " Evolution of Charities. 257 considering these things, I say, we study agriculture, and try to plant the seeds so that more of them will germinate than under the natural regime. For the purposes of this evening, then, we consider human selection that is, selection as it affects human beings to be made up of three elements. First, natural selection in a very narrow sense, meaning by this the selection that results from the operations of the blind forces of Nature from winds and floods and droughts, from cold and heat and earthquakes, and from all pestilences having their origin in causes beyond human control. Secondly, there is what may be called instinctive selection, by which I mean that selection which results incidentally from the instincts of man or from his purposeful acts which are not designed to influence selection. As examples of this we may take the extermination of a tribe in which the combative instincts of the individuals are so strong that they can not co-operate for mutual defense, or the death without surviving issue of the debauchee and the prostitute, or the extinction by pesti- lence of the instinctively dirty and unclean, or the tendency to survive and multiply of , sober and thrifty people like the Friends. Thirdly, there is an element in human selection which we may call rational selection. We have an example of this when the State enacts laws against murder and sup- presses private war ; when it drains a malarial swamp or provides for sanitary inspection in order to lower the death rate ; when it forbids child labor and endeavors to prevent the unhealthful employment of women ; when the com- munity guarantees the destitute from starvation or death from exposure ; whenever, in short, any action is taken for the set purpose of affecting the death rate or the birth rate, or for promoting the public health. COMPARISON OF NATURAL, INSTINCTIVE, AND RATIONAL SELECTION. Natural selection, using the term in the narrow sense above indicated, is perfectly ruthless and fearfully wasteful. Instinctive selection is a step toward something better, some- thing more economical of time and energy and life ; but the advance is still made blindly with many halts and retro- gressions and excursions into no thoroughfares. The excess- ive development of the sexual instinct which at one time is necessary to the survival and development of the race, 258 Evolution of Charities. may at another destroy the welfare of the race which it once promoted. The instinct of the fighter, at one time necessary to preserve its owner in the rude struggles of the time, may at another get its owner hung for murder. The instinctive impulse to aid the destitute and to keep the poor from starving, which results in more economical evolution at one time, may at another be the agent which wastefully prolongs the existence of those who are unfit from the stand- point of race improvement. Eational selection at the first, and at its poorest, is only a shade better than instinctive selection. Indeed, in cases of definite blundering it may have worse results than instinc- tive selection. Indeed, it is hard to tell in any given case how far we should allow our reason to dominate our im- pulses. But it is manifest that rational selection, at its best, and in its possibilities, is the superior of the other two forms, and those races will eventually survive which practice it most constantly and most wisely. In so far as the impulse to aid one's fellow-men has here- tofore affected human selection, it has formed a part of in- stinctive rather than of rational selection. Pity for the helpless, the diseased, and the destitute did not originate in the reasoning faculties any more than did maternal love. Indeed, it might have seemed that a people that charged it- self with the task of supporting the weaklings would have been fatally handicapped ; that it was irrational to assist in- capables to survive ; and we frequently hear it urged to-day that the giving of relief promotes the survival of the unfit. But experience has indicated that those communities and peoples that have developed largely the charitable instinct, properly so called, have been the ones that survived. In the many instances that might be cited where the depend- ent classes have become so numerous as to drag down the community, a closer examination will show that the altruis- tic impulse had degenerated or been counterfeited, and we do not recall any race that is even reported to have become extinct through the excess of genuine brotherly love. UTILITY OF THE CHARITABLE IMPULSE. The survival of those peoples that have the altruistic sentiment strongly developed is perhaps a sufficient answer, from the evolutionary standpoint, to those who object to all philanthropic undertakings as mischievous meddling with Evolution of Charities. 259 the benign course of Nature ; and yet, perhaps, it is worth while to introduce a parenthesis, in answer to the questions, Why not be brutal ? Why not chloroform diseased babies and aged paupers ? Why not shoot down the Indians and drown the inmates of our insane asylums? Perhaps for the purposes of this parenthesis these questions sufficiently answer themselves if we add to them the question, What would be the effect of such a course upon the state of feel- ing existing between employer and employed, between debtor and creditor, and between all the myriad atoms that make up modern society? Do we not know instinctively that a return to barbarism in this way would return us to barbarism in other ways ? The question, Why not be brutal ? has further been answered by anticipation : Because it is not economical. And, finally, if we are asked why the vicious and the profligate, the dirty and the diseased, can not be allowed to exterminate themselves, run their course and perish, we can answer that gangrene will not do the work of caustic. Social cancers infect a larger portion of the body politic than they eat away. INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS SANCTIONS ON THE CHARITABLE IMPULSE. Whatever begot the charitable impulse in the first place, it survived because it was useful ; and any impulse or habit that is for the good of the race is likely, in the course of time, to be fixed and its practice insured by religious sanc- tion." Almost all customs, including the organization of the Government and of the family, and even habits of cleanli- ness and diet, have been thus confirmed. For present pur- poses we need not bother ourselves with teleological con- siderations, nor inquire whether the religious sanctions begot the useful habits de novo, or whether the useful habits origi- nated through spontaneous variation, and were then seized upon and perpetuated by the religious instinct. To whatever source we may trace the sentiment of pity and the desire to relieve the destitute, this, at least, is sure that it had not been in existence long before it was re-en- forced by religious sanctions. In the language of the Ven- didad, as quoted by Mr. Crooker : " The riches of the in- finite God will be bestowed upon him who relieves the poor." Or, according to a Hindu epic, " He who giveth without stint food to a fatigued wayfarer, never seen before, obtain- 260 Evolution of Charities. eth merit that is great." In China, long before the Chris- tian era, and in some sort with religious encouragement and guidance, there were refuges for aged and sick poor, free schools for poor children, free eating-houses for wearied laborers, associations for the distribution of second-hand clothing, and societies for paying the expenses of marriage and burial among the poor.* But religious sanctions sometimes deteriorate the very impulse that they are supposed to strengthen. When the religious re-enforcement of a charitable impulse has been the desire to do the will of the Heavenly Father, wishing only good to his children, it has not only strengthened the altru- istic impulse, but has uplifted and ennobled it. When, on the other hand, it has been a mere desire to escape hell and enter heaven, or to propitiate a more or less unreasonable deity, we have had the acts of charity without the motive, the letter that killeth without the spirit that giveth life. The grim threat of the Talmud " The house that does not open to the poor shall open to the physician " is typical of many passages that might be quoted from the older religious writ- ings. Under the influence of such threats or of more direct ones, many a man has felt constrained to aid the poor for purely selfish reasons ; to do some overt act that he thought prescribed, in order that it might be accounted to him for righteousness. We all know how the teachings of the New Testament were so distorted by the mediaeval Church that princely gifts to the poor were made for the selfish purpose of benefiting the giver's soul, and with entire disregard of the results upon the recipients of relief. Indeed, so purely selfish, and even commercial, were the reasons which led the people of the middle ages to give to the poor, that one person, whom Prof. Huxley has quoted, spoke of such gifts as " merely a species of fire insurance." ALMSGIVING No CHAKITY; FAILURE OF THE CHURCH AS AN ALMONER. We shall find, as we review the various forms of the chari- table impulse, that the objective effects almost invariably deteriorate in consequence of a deterioration of the subjec- tive motive. When almsdeed takes the place of charity, the * See Crocker, Problems in American Society, p. 51. I am indebted to Mr. Crooker for any symptoms of erudition that may appear in this part of the lecture. Evolution of Charities. 261 poor are not helped, but merely fed and clothed, and too frequently degraded. Further than this, however valuable religion may be as a motive power urging people to chari- table deeds, the ecclesiastical organization, the Church, as an administrator of relief funds on a large scale, has seldom been a success. The work of the Church and of religious people has been most successful as an initiator of charitable undertakings. New classes of sufferers have been sought out and helped ; new methods of helping them have been invented and applied ; but when the community had been educated up to the point where it saw that a large chari- table work needed doing, and when the methods of doing this work had been quite thoroughly elaborated and reduced to a routine, the usefulness of the Church organization as the community's almoner has been pretty well at an end. Specialists in spiritual matters do not appear to be the best administrator^ of material relief. This comes only in part from the deterioration of the charitable impulse already referred to, and only in part from the worldliness which creeps into a wealthy church organization. It comes very largely from the tendency of ecclesiastical almoners to for- get the material effects of their work, through concentration of their thoughts upon things spiritual. In our modern churches there is very little of the selfish element which in- duces the church members to give for the sake of their own souls, but there is too much of the giving which serves only as a bait to bring the unrepentant within the spiritual reach of a particular denomination. The " fire-insurance " ele- ment has disappeared, but the element of interdenomina- tional competition takes its place. Material relief is scat- tered about as a farmer scatters corn about his feet when he wishes to bring the chickens about him in order to catch some of them. So blind are many of the workers to the effect upon the poor of this sort of relief-giving, that a charity organizationist in a large American city once told me that the relief-giving female missionary was the bane of his life. THE STATE AS ALMONER. So common has been the failure of the Church to be a good almoner when administering large funds, that in most countries the heaviest part of the burden of relieving the poor has been transferred to the state. In England the Church was deprived of her almonership at the time of the 262 Evolution of Charities. Keformation ; in France, only at the close of the last cen- tury ; and in Italy the great charitable endowments adminis- tered by the Church have been secularized only within the last few years. But so complete has this change actually been that a recent volume by Hubert- Valleroux, urging that the public authorities in France should loosen their hold upon the relief funds now administered in that country by the Bureaux de Bienfaisance, and that the Church should again become the community's largest almoner, is a reaction- ary plea to which no one seems likely to g*ve heed. And yet this author is right when he claims that the charities of France were largely begotten and developed by the Church. It is mainly through church influence that the community has been educated up to a point where it insists that this large mass of relief work shall be done. None the less, it is proper that after individuals and the Church have experi- mented and found out what needs doing, the doing of it should often be intrusted to the state. This tendency from ecclesiastical to state administration of relief -giving was confirmed at the close of the last cen- tury, when the religious dogma of the brotherhood of man was paralleled by the political dogma of the equality of men. Among the rights which the revolutionary governments of France held to be inherent in the individual was the right to labor and the right to be saved from starvation. The " passion for humanity " not only led to the extravagant guarantees given by the revolutionary governments of France, but indirectly it encouraged the lavish giving of outdoor relief, which proved such a curse in England. This lavish giving of public outdoor relief, which has been repeatedly cited as an example of the limitless power for harm inherent in the state, resulted, as Chalmers pointed out, in taking money from the thrifty by taxation and giv- ing it to the thriftless in the name of charity. It was al- tered greatly for the better by the Poor Law reform of 1834. In the modifications of political philosophy that have come about since 1848, the justification of public poor-relief has been much changed. It is now oftenest justified on the grounds of expediency, and, curiously enough, those countries which theoretically give relief as a right which the individual may demand do not differ greatly in the practical administration of the poor law from those which give relief as a favor and as a matter of expediency. Evolution of Charities. 263 INFLUENCE OF THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE DOCTRINE. But " equality " was not the first word in the political creed of the revolutionary epoch from 1776 to 1848. The first word was " liberty," and while the passion for human- ity, acting on political theories, tended greatly to extend public relief, at the same time the passion for liberty, oper- ating through economic theory, begot the doctrine of laissez faire, and tended to limit public relief work or to abolish it altogether. Eeally, though not avowedly, the economists put the emphasis on "liberty," and the poli- ticians the emphasis on " equality," and in both cases the emphasis was rather too strong. The economists rendered invaluable aid in the reform of the poor laws, but the fact that they several times said " Don't " to good purpose em- boldened them to say it sometimes when they had much better have said " Do." Napoleon's maxim, " Open the way for talent," is an excellent maxim for those who have talent, but how about those who have it not ? While the former press on to the, opening made for them, it is likely that the latter will be crushed. " Whoso in the press," said Carlyle, " is trodden down, has only to lie there and be trampled broad," and this was his way of formulating the conclusion which he thought he found in some poor-law commission reports that had been written by economists. The school of political economy of Cobden and John Bright the Man- chester School, as the Germans call it implied in their teaching that philanthropy was only a mischievous tinker- ing with matters much better left to themselves. But utilitarianism was triumphant on the side of both political and economic theory, and practice was brought to conform with the new philosophy*. People were no longer lavishly given relief simply because abstract reasoning indi- cated that they had a " right " to it, and, on the other hand, the community never consented to let the destitute suffer and die, simply because the " dismal science " indicated that that was the proper thing to do. The relief work of the Church, the state, and the individual has been brought to the base of expediency, and neither theological nor philo- sophical considerations are sufficient to compel the contin- ued doing of that which experience indicates to be unwise. It has already been indicated, in a general way, that be- tween the time of the ^Reformation and the present a very large amount of relief work has been undertaken by the 264 Evolution of Charities. state. In New York State alone the Empire State of a country that was once thought to be quarantined against pauperism by the Declaration of Independence considerably more than one million dollars per month is paid out from the public treasury for charitable institutions. But are public charities charities at all? Mrs. Lowell, you know, has called her work Public Belief and Private Charity, indicating a distinction. When a special committee of the Legislature of Pennsylvania was investigating the expendi- tures for charities in that State, the committee took the ground that an institution supported from the proceeds of taxation was not a charity at all. The Indiana State Board of Charities, on the other hand, say that it is proper to call a public institution for the relief of the poor a charitable institution, since it is sympathy for the poor that induces the legislators to vote the money ; and it is sympathy for the poor that induces their constituents to uphold them in so doing. It would surely be unwise to quarrel with a pop- ular nomenclature for the sake of a fine distinction which after all may not be justifiable. DIFFERENTIATION OF EDUCATIONAL FROM CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. Historically we find, as already indicated, that what the state is now doing was formerly done by the Church, or by private associations, or by individuals. When the work be- came large, and it was certain the community demanded the doing of it, and the methods of doing it had been well de- veloped, then it was unloaded upon the state, and the state still bears the load. But there has been a tendency for some of the enterprises which*started as charities to cease to be classed as such after the state has had control of them for a considerable time. I refer especially to educational institu- tions. These were formerly considered charities, and in law an incorporated school or university is still classed as an elee- mosynary corporation. The charities commission which investigated the endowed charities of England found some of its hardest work not in reforming and revising the insti- tutions for the giving of material relief, but in the grammar schools and other educational enterprises supported by en- dowments. The free schools of England were long spoken of as " charity schools," but in this country we would no longer think of so classifying them. Evolution of Charities. 2C5 Lying between what we now call educational institutions and what we now call charitable institutions are the estab- lishments for the education of the defective classes, as the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the feeble-minded. It is within the memory of men still living that such institutions as these were supported almost entirely by private contribu- tions and classed by their promoters as charities. Yet now they resent such a classification and wish to be considered purely educational. While this development has been going on, the character of their support has also changed and they are now, for the most part, maintained at public expense. As regards the feeble-minded, the development is behind that of the other two classes of defectives mentioned, and in the work of caring for inebriates public enterprise has as yet done almost nothing. Whether or not other groups of institutions, now classed as charitable, shall eventually come to be classed otherwise can not be definitely foreseen ; but my own impression is that there is an important practical and theoretical distinction between the giving of material relief such as food, shelter, and clothing and the giving merely of instruction and opportunities for self-develop- ment. There is in the former class of undertakings a possibility of degrading the recipient, which is almost en- tirely absent in the second class ; and it seems likely that the " taint of charity,"'whatever that may be, will always cling to the giving of material relief. EVILS AND ADVANTAGES OF STATE ADMINISTRATION ; THE SUBSIDY QUESTION. The state has been an unsatisfactory almoner in some ways. The element of brotherly love is at a minimum in relief work when it is done by public officials. Sometimes the blight of partisan politics falls upon the charities of the city, or the county, or the State, as it did in the old days of outdoor relief in Brooklyn ; as it has in Marion County, In- diana, where the volume of outdoor relief varies with the intensity of election excitement ; as it has in Nebraska and many other States, where positions in the insane asylums and other institutions are part of the political spoils. But in the main, where the work to be done is large, the state is the most reliable almoner that we have ; at the same time it should be said that the large measure of administrative awkwardness which has fallen to the lot of American local 266 Evolution of Charities. government makes it undesirable that the state should un- dertake work which can not be done in a routine manner and according to pretty thoroughly generalized rules. For this reason outdoor relief in American cities and counties has usually been a source of degradation to the poor and of corruption to local politics. The advantages of public relief work are that an income adequate to all that needs doing can be depended upon, and that under a just system of taxation all are compelled to contribute according to their ability. The advantages of private charitable organization are great economy of admin- istration, more personal and sympathetic interest in the beneficiaries, and a greater measure of inventiveness and adaptability of means to ends. It has therefore been fre- quently attempted to unite the advantages of public and private charities by the giving of subsidies from the public funds to the private charitable institutions. Few, perhaps, know how far this tendency has gone. In New York city alone nearly two million dollars per year is paid into the treasuries of private charitable institutions. In New York State a single private institution receives over two hundred thousand dollars per annum in the form of such subsidies. The objections to this hybrid form of organization are, that by disguising pauperism it promotes it, as in the case of the fourteen thousand dependent children in New York city ; second, that it leads to the needless duplicating of institu- tions, as where in Maryland there are two sets of juvenile reformatories one administered by the Catholics and the other by the Protestants ; third, that it does not take the charities out of politics, but merely transfers their represent- atives from the executive offices to the legislative lobby; and fourth, that it tends to dry up the sources of private benevolence. As illustrating this last point, it may be no- ticed that as public contributions to institutions for the education of the deaf, dumb, and blind have increased, pri- vate contributions have fallen off. Private donors do not like to have their mites hidden by the large contributions from the public treasury, and turn their attention to chari- ties that do not receive state support. In the District of Columbia I have studied this matter with care, and it is almost uniformly true that as public support has increased private contributions have fallen off, and in many cases they have finally ceased altogether. The subsidy system, as a transition from private support to public support, may some- Evolution of Charities. 267 times be advisable, but, wherever practiced, the state should have some effective means of supervising the institutions it subsidizes, and should have absolute control over the admis- sion and the discharge of the inmates whom it supports. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EELIEF WOKK IN THE UNITED STATES. At the present time the state is responsible for the great mass of relief work in the United States. In its almshouse it provides for all classes not otherwise provided for, and es- pecially for the aged and infirm poor. In relief of the sick it usually provides free hospitals in the large cities, but where endowments have accumulated, as in Philadelphia, the larger part of this work is done by private institutions. Either directly or through subsidized institutions, it pro- vides for the care and training of dependent children ; it provides for the education, with free board and lodging, of the defective classes ; in its asylums or hospitals it provides for the ever-increasing number of the insane ; to a happily increasing extent it provides education and custodial care for the feeble-minded ; and, finally, in some cities, as Bos- ton, and recently in Washington, there is public provision for the homeless poor. The state having undertaken all these forms of charitable work, what now remains for pri- vate benevolence to do ? The same work that has always fallen to the lot of private benevolence that, namely, of invention, experimentation, progress. Private benevolence showed what was possible in the way of friendly inns and wood-yards, and now that branch of work is about ripe for transfer to the public authorities. It has shown and is showing what can be done in the way of free kindergartens for the children of the poor, and that work is being trans- ferred to the educational department of the local govern- ments ; it is showing in New York, Baltimore, and else- where what can be done in the promotion of thrift through dime saving institutions, and that work we hope will even- tually be transferred to a postal saving department of the Federal Government. Private benevolence has shown and is showing, in the great children's aid societies of the coun- try, the advantages to be derived from boarding children in private homes instead of herding them in great institutions ; and this lesson has also been learned by progressive public authorities in Michigan, Minnesota, the District of Colum- 268 Evolution of Charities. ' bia, and elsewhere. There also remains for private benevo- lence a very considerable amount of work which the public authorities can not properly undertake. At present private benevolence should do all that is done in the way of out- door relief. It is conceivable that if we improve in the ad- ministrative branches of our Government, a time may come when the work of relieving the poor in their homes can be undertaken by public officials ; but such a time is yet far distant. However this may be, there will always remain for private undertakings the relief work which must necessa- rily be re-enforced by religious exhortation and spiritual up- lift. The Salvation Army can do much that no public authority can ever undertake, and there will always be relief work which can best be done by the minister and the mis- sionary. Finally, there remains for private benevolence the work of seeing that public authorities do their duty ; and, most important of all, the work of organizing and co-ordi- nating all the charitable agencies of our cities, counties, and States. The former is especially the duty of the State Charities Aid Association, and the latter of the Charity Or- ganization Society. ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION. In the outline of this lecture, which was prepared before the man who was to give the lecture had been chosen, the heading is inserted " The Effect of Indiscriminate Charity on Character." I ask to be excused from treating that sub- ject. It is easy to talk upon the subject of philanthropy as a failure, and I have myself discussed that subject many times and at length ; but, as a student of political economy, I hold it to be my duty to say very little about it. Econo- mists have harped enough on that string already. From Walter Bagehot, who said that it was doubtful whether or not the efforts of philanthropists to relieve their fellow-men had not resulted in more harm than good, to the last college sophomore, who has written an essay on Pauperism, they all know how to insist upon the dangers of relief work. At present and to this audience it seems a more helpful thing to shadow forth, however dimly, the place of charitable work in evolutionary economy, and to show that we are not obliged to look upon all the works of philanthropy as a gratuitous blunder. The charitable impulse persists because in the long run it Evolution of Charities. 269 is useful to the race that possesses it. It has a distinct value in so modifying environment as to save from needless extermination all who are in any wise fit from the stand- point of race improvement. It is useful in that it mini- mizes suffering, lengthens life, and economizes energy. In the complex conditions of modern life self-sacrifice must manifest itself and do its work through modern machinery. It must take into its service all the implements of scientific research and school itself to be wise as well as sympathetic. With the same care and for the same reasons that it would give shelter to neglected and abandoned children, it must see to it that it does not encourage parents to neglect and abandon their children ; with the same care and for the same reasons that it would feed a hungry man, it must see to it that that man works for what he gets ; with the same care and for the same reasons that it assists and helps a woman who has been abused and abandoned by her husband, it must, if possible, punish the man who has abused and abandoned her ; with the same care and for the same reasons that it would insure a feeble-minded woman against star- vation, it must insure that same woman against the possi- bility of having offspring. Charity, as has been well said, must no longer be a means of securing merit, but a method of helpfulness. At one time it was supposed that self-seeking was invari- ably and inevitably bad, but the early economists " changed all that " and taught that enlightened self-interest was the salvation of industrial society. Bastiat, the rhetorician of economists, almost takes our breath away as he describes the " economic harmonies " latent in enlightened selfish- ness. That which produced so many evils, the economists declared, was only a very short-sighted species of selfish- ness. Now, if enlightened self-interest is a good thing, which it is, enlightened self-sacrifice is a better thing. One instinct, as well as the other, may be blind and so harmful, but one instinct, as well as the other, is capable of enlight- enment ; one, as well as the other, may be rationalized. Your lectures this winter have dealt with " The Factors in American Civilization." Among such factors, enlight- ened self-sacrifice must find a place if America is to be loyal to the " high calling wherewith she is called " ; if, as thou- sands have fondly hoped, she is to prove herself to be that nation which at last shall " serve as model for the mighty world, and be the fair beginning of a time." 270 Evolution of Charities. ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. Miss M. E. RICHMOND, Secretary of the Charity Organization Society, Baltimore, Md. : Some time ago I had occasion to attend a meeting called for the purpose of organizing reformatory work among homeless young women. Two protests were made, I remember, against the plan of work as there explained. One good lady complained that it was nar- row to limit the organization to one purpose ; that so much good work could be done for worthy old couples too. Another objected that the children were neglected nothing appealed to her heart so much as the cry of little children. Inspired by these examples, a third person present moved that we bind ourselves to nothing definite ; that we re- main (though she did not so word it) in a state " of relatively indefi- nite, incoherent homogeneity." When I wrote to an officer of your association, Mr. Skilton, soon after about the evolution of charitable methods, and he replied with great frankness that the wow-evolution of charities had attracted his attention for a long time, I thought that possibly he too had attended recently a meeting for the organization of reformatory work. Perhaps, to one who is in the field, the minor obstacles and discour- agements assume undue importance, and such a one should express her gratitude first of all to Prof. Warner for the larger view which gives charity its rightful place in the evolution of life on our planet. It is my purpose, however, to dwell on some of the discouragements, hoping we may find an indication here of the path which progress must follow. Taking the more objective of these first, the daily press of our large cities, with some notable exceptions, is the enemy of charitable prog- ress. It parades the needs of our poorer neighbors in grossly exagger- ated descriptions, it advertises the poverty of particular families, with name, street, and number, in local items, where the policeman and the newspaper reporter figure as guardian angels ; and, worse still, it fos- ters that vanity which delights in the cheap, local notoriety of a chari- table leader. Another and most discouraging element in modern charity is the gross materialism of the charitable a materialism which pins its faith to charitable cash and charitable bricks and mortar, a materialism which thrives too often in our churches, and finds its expression, on Evolution of Charities. 271 cold days, in loaves of bread sent for distribution to police headquar- ters, or in free soup for the idle. Still another discouragement, and the natural corollary of this materialism, is the wasteful expenditure for charity in our large cities. In Baltimore, which is not the most wealthy city of its size in the East, we spend a million and a third of dollars yearly in running the public and private charities of the city, and this takes no account of individual benefactions, which certainly amount to a third of a million more. Those who know the work of these charities most intimately feel that only a very small part of this money is spent in making our people permanently better, and there- fore happier. The tendency of charities to revert to a lower type should be noted. The wave of reform which reached our country from Elberfeld during the forties and resulted here in associations for the improvement of the condition of the poor, purposing to teach habits of thrift and self- help and to discourage beggary, subsided again to leave us with a number of relief agencies, many of them still engaged in no better work than the distribution of coal and groceries. The history of these associations reminds me of the career of that " missing link," the as- cidian, who gave promise at one time of a backbone, but reverted later into a mere stomach. It has been said that the most liberal of us are superstitious in spots. A physician would discover your medical superstitions, and it is but natural that I should find myself wondering how many charitable superstitions are still yours. The power over us of outworn charitable traditions is so great that nothing but a perpetual readjustment to the best knowledge and experience of our time can save us from fatal fal- lacies. Take an illustration from Boston, of whose philanthropic progress we are accustomed to speak with awe. The mayor of that city appointed a special committee of men and women to examine and re- port upon the condition of its public charitable institutions. Last year, in their final report, the committee summed up many pages of admirable and most practical suggestions with the statement that pre- vention and cure appear to form no part of the policy of the adminis- tration ; that there seems to be " no policy except that of feeding and housing cheaply, and, on the whole, humanely, all who come." A critic, commenting upon this report, remarks: "Remedial charity is in everybody's theory but in no one's practice." I am not prepared to agree with him, but it is quite certain that we are all of us supplied with a larger body of doctrine on this subject than we have ever used. Is the situation quite hopeless, then ? By no manner of means. I take the report of this Boston committee as a most hopeful sign of the times. When men and women are willing to spend months in the 272 Evolution of Charities. careful examination and tabulation of facts for no possible personal gain and with the certainty of giving much necessary offense, when they consent to become intimately acquainted with the most disgust- ing conditions and their loathsome causes, and when this knowledge is informed by a spirit of enlightened helpfulness, the battle is not lost. A new spirit is .abroad the spirit which Dr. Warner calls enlightened self-sacrifice. It demands a thorough acquaintance with the facts in their totality, and an appreciation of what others have done and are doing in any given charity work. In sharp contrast to the old school, it insists upon the same standard of manly and womanly independence for every human soul, and seeks to develop habits of self-help by wise giving and by wise withholding. This new spirit came to us with a second wave of charitable re- form, which was first felt in 1878 from the work of Edward Denison and Octavia Hill in England. This wave has not subsided and left us in the state of the ascidian its force is developing, through what is known as the charity organization movement, a well-defined vertebral column. Over eighty cities and towns in the United States have organized charity organization societies ; but it would be unfair to leave the im- pression that the spirit of the new charity has been confined within these bodies. On the contrary, it has leavened the whole charitable lump. Orphan asylums are being replaced by technical schools ; un- wieldy institutions by cottages, and, in the case of children, by care- fully selected homes in the country ; Dorcas societies, where the ladies of the parish met to do some sewing for a remote and shadowy class known as " the deserving poor," have given place to sewing schools and industrial workrooms; and educational philanthropy is every- where on the increase. In searching about for some logical progression in the history of charities, it has occurred to me that a hint of the possibilities as yet un- developed in the race's charitable instinct may be found in the growth of that more highly developed but, as I believe, parallel instinct maternal love. Most permanent now of all human ties, it is hard to realize that, in the early communities, mother and child held this rela- tion to each other during the period of infancy only : that motherhood ceased when physical helplessness was at an end. Mr. Fiske has shown, in his able chapter on moral genesis, how the maternal instinct grew with the growing faculties of man and with the increasing need of ante-natal education ; the more complex the needs of the child, the deeper the mother's love. Trace the history of mother love through the ages, and you can not fail to find many interesting analogies to the history of charitable Evolution of Charities. 273 development. If, in the lack of permanence in our charitable relations, we are forced to compare ourselves to the gregarious communities of barbarism, the comparison may give us an enlightening glimpse of our unrealized possibilities. If, in artificial states of society, we find the mother relegating her mother's privileges and duties to hirelings, it will not be impossible to discover those in our own day who are will- ing to pay others to discharge their charitable duties. If the mother instinct, unenlightened and uncontrolled, has hindered race develop- ment at times, so too have we petted and coddled into helplessness those we would have helped. But for mother love as we know it at its best that primal passion so elevated and transformed by self-sacrifice, so keenly alive to the threefold responsibility of motherhood, so conscious that from the plastic lump of flesh is demanded a symmetrical development of body, mind, and soul for such love we have no parallel in charity. Such love must be our teacher. When we have failed in efforts to help our fellow-man, is it not because we were blind to the claims of his threefold nature! Is it not because the woe of impecuniousness or of physical suffering appealed more to our sluggish imaginations than the mental and moral lacks behind them! When we know about and care intensely for the whole man, when no sort of giving will con- tent us which fails to carry with it our time, our thought, ourselves then, indeed, may we feel that the charitable instinct has become a powerful factor in civilization. PROF. ROBERT FOSTER : Those who have watched carefully the evolution of charities, as I have done for the past forty years, must have noted certain features as awakening interest, inspiring hope, and accomplishing the best re- sults. Among the features referred to are these : 1. The decrease of indiscriminate almsgiving. 2. The use of scientific methods, with love as the impelling motive. 3. The substitution of remunerative employment for the dole of alms. 4. The divorce of institutional charity from politics. 5. Improved dwellings for the poor, in which real and pure home life is possible. 6. The establishment of benevolent agencies which are or are likely to become self-supporting. All these principles have been adopted to a considerable extent, and all are essential to large progress in right directions. There are, it is true, many persons who dissent from this ; some who are reformers on one line, who insist that all effort and energy should be concentrated 274 Evolution of Charities. on the work of shutting up the dram shops, for example, or on the care of neglected childhood. These, surely, are important ; are, like the others, indeed, essential ; but no one is sufficient in itself, no one is the single panacea for the ills of poverty; no one can do more than a part of the work of redeeming Brooklyn or New York city from the want and woe and wickedness which, alas! so largely abound there. In the time allotted I can only dwell on one or two of those features indicated as prominent in the evolution of charities. The decrease of the pernicious custom of indiscriminate almsgiving is more and more manifest, and we rejoice in it chiefly because the deserving poor are greatly the gainers thereby. The greatest curse possible in any com- munity is the bestowal of alms without previous inquiry. The con- sciousness of this has led gradually but surely to the adoption of scientific methods in charity. Especially during the past decade there has been a persistent endeavor to bring the teachings of science to bear practically on this great subject, and, without suppressing the sentiment of charity in the individual soul, to accomplish the greatest good to the greatest number through organization through wisely directed institutional activities; to do this in obedience to the dic- tates of common sense and yet without sacrificing that spirit of human sympathy which Paul exalts above faith and hope, and which Henry Drummond rightly styles " the greatest thing in the world." That noble society, the Bureau of Charities, in this city, is the finest illus- tration known to me of the wisdom of focusing the earnest sentiment and sympathy of the community, and without check directing their flood into common-sense channels. I am deeply impressed with the value of the work done by this bureau, and I am amazed to learn from time to time that they lack the funds needed to carry out the plans they so wisely project. Would that more of the surplus wealth of this rich city might find its way into their treasury. There is one other local institution with the operations of which I am thoroughly conver- sant, and I think no one will gainsay the affirmation that it is doing its share, and a very large share, toward solving the problem of the poor. During the past week there were taken from the free library of the Union for Christian Work an average of more than six hundred books to be read in the homes of the people. During almost every week employment, in many cases permanent, is provided for at least seventy persons. The Union is unique in its policy, which is strictly adhered to : No money is paid out to its beneficiaries, and no money is received from them. This Free Labor Bureau of the Union, probably the largest of its kind in the world, has for its motto and motive this proposition : To promote self-help is to help the most effectually. Evolution of Charities. 275 MR. BOLTON HALL : I think it may be shown that in many cases, instead of saving reck- less waste, charity has increased it. Charity is a palliative designed to sustain the status quo in our social institutions. On account of charity men are induced to endure the conditions in which they find themselves. The time is past when charity was a kind of fire insur- ance against the contingencies of the future life, because we have ceased to believe in the fire. But it is now an insurance of another kind an insurance against social tornadoes. But for charity, men would long ago have swept away the whole order of things as it now exists. What would be the effect upon the people of Brooklyn if, on some such morning as we have had of late, fifty people should be found frozen to death f The public mind would be immeasurably shocked ; yet many of the poor of this great city go where they had better be frozen to death. Our police lodging-houses save the body but destroy the soul. Here is an entire field that charity now occupies which ought to be left vacant. It attracts to the cities a large number who, if left in the country, would support themselves well. They come to the city assured that if they find nothing to do there are at least plenty of places to " turn in." The best way to relieve this kind of distress is to do nothing. "We have made no progress in the relief of poverty for eighteen hundred years. We have not fewer poor people ; we have not less distress. The charity organizations have done one good thing : they have collected statistics and discredited the old claim that the cause of poverty is drunkenness. It is the other way : the cause of drunkenness is poverty. They have also shown conclusively that the cause of poverty is not laziness. Forty per cent of those who apply for assistance need no help but the opportunity to work. When the Pil- grim fathers came to this country they had nothing and found nothing but land. As long as men can get the land there is no lack of work. But we allow individuals to monopolize the land : this is the cause of poverty and charity. What are we going to do about it f Divide the land anew t That would do no good. The sensible and natural course is where anybody has a monopoly of any kind let him pay to the rest of the community a reasonable value ; as in law, when property is divided among heirs, if one takes all the land he pays the others who have none. What we need is access to the land. Make it unprofitable to hold natural opportunities without using them. Tax natural monopolies up to their full rental value. It should be as ab- surd for a man to be " out of work " as out of air, and if we remove the artificial barriers to opportunity it will become so. 276 .Evolution* of Charities. DR. WARNER, in reply : With the last speaker I realize the lack of time to treat the subject adequately. Voltaire said : " The way to be stupid is to say every- thing." I have at least, I hope, avoided that accusation. I am aware of the truth of Spencer's dictum : " The final result of saving people from their folly is to fill the world with fools." As to the idea that charity will not be necessary if we have a proper social organization that giving free access to land will abolish poverty and do away with the problem of charity : If any one thinks he can cure the complex disease of poverty with a single panacea he is assuming as much as that all bodily diseases can be cured by one drug. I am reminded of a man on the street corner giving a lecture on physiology. He conveys a good deal of tolerably accurate information, but finally traces all dis- eases to one organ, holds up his twenty-five-cent bottle of stuff to regulate that organ and there you are ! About a quarter of all the poverty in our society originates in bodily disease, and it is as impos- sible to obviate that poverty as the bodily disease from whence it comes. There is one distinction which Mr. George makes in his books which he could never have made if he had ever acted as a " friendly visitor." It is as absurd to speak of " voluntary poverty " as of volun- tary stomach-ache. We may choose to do things that give us the pain, but we never choose the pain. Poverty arises not from one thing, but from many'things. One who has lived in the West, where access to land is free, must know that a great deal of poverty comes from dis- ease, is caused by bad habits, etc. Access to land is not a cure for these evils. I believe private property in land is based on expediency, and has been, on the whole, a great social advantage. If by having private property in air we could increase the amount and improve the quality of air for the people, I should favor that also. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY .FACILITY A 001 207 071 o D APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. A new volume in Herbert Spencer's System of Synthetic Philosophy. E PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS. Vol. II. By 1 1 KRBERT SPENCER. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. This volume consists of three parts, the first of which. "Justice," lia-i been previously published separately. The parts which the author has now completed are entitled respectively " Negative Beneficence " and "Positive Beneficence." (For convenience of those who already possess the first part, the two others are bound together in a separate volume ; price, $1.25.) In the complete " Principles of Ethics " the reader possesses one of the most able and at the same time lucid interpretations of modern philosophical thought. In familiar language and entertaining style, with no tendency toward abstruseness, the author deals with his subject in nearly o ie hundred brief chapters, discussing such topics as "Good and Bad Conduct," " Ways of Judging Conduct," " Conciliation," "The Confusion of Ethical Thought,' "Revenge," "Justice," "Gen- erosity," "Veracity," ''Chastity." "Culture," "Amusements," "Mar- riage," "Parenthood," "Animal Ethics," "Human Justice," "The Right of Property." 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By CHARLES DE GARMO, Ph. D., President of Swarthinore College. 36. Natural Factors in American Cirilization. By Rev. JOHN C. KlMBALL. 37. What America Owes to the Old World. By A. EMERSON PALMER. 38. War and Progress. By Dr. LEWIS G. JAN! 39. Interstate Commerce. By ROBERT W. TAVLER. 40. Foreign Commerce. By Hon. WILLIAM J. COOMBS. 41. TJie Social and Political Status of Wome.-i. By Rev. JOHN W. CHADWICK. 42. The Economic Position of Woman. By 3Iiss CAROLINE B. LE Row. 43. Evolution of Penal Methods and Institutions. By JAMES Mc- KEEN. 44. Evolution of Charities and Charitable Institutions. By Prof. AMOS G. WARNER, Ph.D., Superintendent of Public Charities, Washington, D. C. 45. The Drink Problem. By T. D. CROTHERS, M. D., Editor of the " Quarterly Journal of Inebriety." 46. The Labor Problem. By Rev. NICHOLAS P. OILMAN. Editor of the " Xe\v World." 47. Political Aspects of the Labor Problem. By J. W. SULLIVAN. 48. The Philosophy of History. By Rev. E. P. POWELL. 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