USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Municipal government history and politics, Vol. V > Part 22
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AMERICAN PERIODICALS.
There are several periodicals which should be familiar to all charity-workers. First, that called Lend a Hand, edited by the Rev. Edward Everett Hale. This magazine is reada- ble and popular in the best sense. In every number are sug- gestive stories and brief summaries of the reports of many charitable societies. The editorials discuss such subjects as the difference between pauperism and poverty, and the prin- ciples of charity organization. An article which appeared in the first number of Lend a Hand, describing the abuses which prevailed in a prison belonging to the United States, led to an examination and remedy of those abuses by authority of Con- gress. Among other interesting information afforded by this magazine is an account of the attempts made in this country to introduce co-operative manufactures.
The Monthly Register, published in Philadelphia, is the official organ of twenty societies of Organized Charity. The
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Bulletin of the New York Charity Organization Society is published monthly and is concerned chiefly with the local work in that city, but it is full of suggestions for workers elsewhere. The Friend is a New York journal of charity, published at 150 Nassau Street.
The International Record of Charities and Correction, edited by F. H. Wines, has just begun its second volume. It is a very valuable repertory of all that pertains to the administra- tion of prisons, reformatories, houses of correction, juvenile asylums, and other forms of state or local organization for the prevention of poverty and crime.
The publications of the American Economic Association are likely to prove of great practical value to the friends of the poor and of the working classes. Most valuable is the series of papers upon the subject of Co-operation in the United States : (1) Co-operation in a Western City, by Albert Shaw, Ph. D., now one of the editors of the Minneapolis Tribune. (2) Co-operation in New England, by E. W. Bemis, Ph. D. (3) Three phases of Co-operation in the West, by A. G. War- ner, former Fellow in History, of the Johns Hopkins Univer- sity, now general agent of the Charity Organization Society in Baltimore. These papers, with others upon the same class of subjects, are written by Baltimore university men, and are soon to be collected and published in book-form in the " Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science."
The publications of the American Social Science Association and of the Social Science Association of Philadelphia are rich in contributions to subjects pertaining to the improvement of society. A file of the proceedings of these two Associations is most desirable for every bureau of organized charities. Among the papers of the society first named, in addition to others already mentioned, are : Associated Charities (No. 12) ; Ameri- can Factory Life, by Miss Lucy Larcom (No. 16); Tenement Houses, by Dr. L. M. Hall (No. 20).
The proceedings of the Annual Conferences of Charities
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and Corrections are among the fullest of all American sources of information respecting the charitable work actually accon- plished in this country and the methods employed in the dif- ferent states and cities. These reports of conferences serve as a kind of national repository for all local experience in the organization and promotion of charities. Interesting reforma- tory and sociological experiments are also recorded here.
ORGANIZED CHARITIES IN ENGLAND.
The best original sources of information are the reports and publications of the London Charity Organization Society and the Charity Organization Review, published monthly. The latter is full of substantial, detailed information, stated in a practical business-like way. If one wishes to descend from the contemplative heights of principle, from sentimental or purely scientific interest in the subject of charities, to practical every day work, this organ of actual experience in London districts will tell what to do and how to do it. The London Journal and official reports are received by the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore and may be seen at their office.
The Hospital is an English Journal, published by an association and designed to give the latest information upon hospital work and kindred charities.
Various works of a suggestive character have been published in England upon the best methods of charitable work, e. g., A Handy Book for Visitors of the Poor in London, by Charles B. P. Bosanquet, secretary of the Charity Organization Society of London ; Sir Charles Trevelyan on Systematic Visitation of the Poor in their own Homes; Thoughts and Experiences of a Charity Organizationist, by J. N. Hornsby Wright ; Method in Almsgiving, by M. W. Moggridge; Suggestions to the Charitable for Systematic Inquiry into the Cases of Applicants for Relief, by C. J. Ribton-Turner; Report of the Local Government Board, for 1873-4, with papers by Octavia Hill and others, upon subjects relating to charity.
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Ginx's Baby, a satire, is a healthful warning against red- tape methods of exercising charity. A baby, born in a Lon- don slum and abandoned by its parents, is tossed about and quarrelled over by various officials and charitable associations of London. The book is out of print, but by no means out of date.
English Charity Organization is the subject of a valuable article recently published in the Baltimore Sun, March 30, 1887. The article was written by Mr. D. R. Randall, of Annapolis, fellow in history at the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity, with some valuable additions by Mr. John Glenn. It is based upon material like that already cited and upon Judge Fisher's inquiries in England. The essay is reprinted as an appendix to this sketch of the literature of charities as a local contribution to the subject, and as a good illustration of how special knowledge, study, and observation may be popularized and made useful through the daily press. It is .interesting for example, to read, in the above sketch, of the work of Thomas Chalmers in Glasgow and of Octavia Hill who is called " the centre of a planetary system of workers who have the care of three thousand tenants in the city of London." This latter work is of special interest to Baltimoreans because it is founded upon the model tenement-house system, estab- Jished for the poor of London by George Peabody.
THOMAS ARNOLD.
One of the earliest of modern Englishmen to interest him- self in the moral elevation of the masses and in the proper application of charity was Thomas Arnold, the head-master of Rugby. The reading of his biography, written by the late Dean Stanley, will afford a good starting-point for the study of that interesting movement called Christian socialism, which is now spreading over England. This movement means the organized and personal effort of good Christians to regenerate the lower strata of English society. Dr. Arnold's essay on
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" The Social Condition of the Operative Classes," reprinted in the volume called Arnold's Miscellaneous Works, from his original letters to the Sheffield Courant, in 1832, is highly suggestive. The essay teaches the great historian's practical method of utilizing the daily press for reformatory work. Arnold even founded and supported for a time a newspaper of his own, conducted in the interest of social reform. He maintained that society " should put the poor man, being a freeman, into a situation where he may live as a freeman ought to live." In Arnold's view the great agencies for the social reform of England are the Christian Church and the English aristocracy. In a letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge, Dr. Arnold said, " I would give anything to be able to organize a Society ' for drawing public attention to the state of the laboring classes throughout the kingdom.' ... A Society might give the alarm, and present the facts to the notice of the public. It was thus that Clarkson overthrew the slave trade."
ENGLISH BIOGRAPHY.
Following Arnold came the social reformers, Frederick Denison Maurice, Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hughes, and Frederick W. Robertson. If one would realize from concrete examples how useful a single human life may be in the improvement of the condition of society, he should study the work of these men. The life of Maurice, chiefly as told in his own letters, has been edited by his son, Colonel Frederick Maurice, in two interesting volumes. A good résumé of the same may be found in the Contemporary Review for March, 1884. Letters and Memories of the life of Charles Kingsley, by his wife, have also been given to the public. Thomas Hughes' life-work is known and read of all men who are interested in the progress of practical Christianity in England. The Life, Letters, Lectures, and Addresses of Robertson have been edited by Stopford A. Brooke and published by the Harpers in New York. A series of lectures upon these chris- 2
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tian workers has been given by Baltimore clergymen and others to university men on Sunday afternoons and should be repeated to workingmen.
Symington's biographical sketch of Thomas Chalmers, who very early engaged in the reformation of charities in Glasgow, should be studied. There is a good article upon Chalmers in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The writings of Chalmers upon Charities are very important, notably his treatment of the Parochial System and Pauperism, and the Civic Economy of large Towns. The autobiography and memoir of Thomas Guthrie are also to be recommended. To the biographical literature of charities belong the Letters and other Writings of Edward Denison, M. P., for Newark, and the Life and Letters of James Hinton.
Among recent biographies, the Life of Lord Shaftsbury de- serves the first place, because of the excellence of the character displayed, the long and eventful period which the memoir covers, and the great variety of social problems to which ref- erence is made. The three volumes are too extended for general perusal, but they will be found most serviceable for reference particularly as to the employment and proper care of neglected children, the housing of the poor, the supervision of lodging-houses, the improvement of insane asylums, and the promotion of temperance. Legislation in respect to factory operatives is another of the themes to which Lord Shaftsbury devoted a great deal of thought. It would be difficult to name any work which gives a more comprehensive review of the charitable movements in London during the reign of Queen Victoria.
The Life of James Fraser, Bishop of Manchester, recently written by Thomas Hughes, illustrates the efficiency of an Oxford Fellow, called from a country parish to be the head of a diocese in which all the modern industrial problems are being worked out on a grand scale. He devoted himself without reserve to the promotion of all good things in Lanca- shire and was sometimes called the Bishop of the Laity and
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sometimes the Bishop of the Dissenters, so ready was he to co-operate with all Christian workers. The education of the people was one of the subjects in which he was most interested and to many people in this country he is chiefly known for his report upon American Schools ; but the Labor Question, and the subordinate matters of Trades Unions and Co-opera- tion, exercised his mind during all his episcopate. He was a noble man, as exemplary and as inspiring as any one who has lived in England since Maurice and Kingsley.
Passing from the lives of men, eminent for their work in social reform, let us note the Lives of Miss Carpenter of Bris- tol, of Sister Dora, and of Elizabeth Fry as among those which are helpful to all who are interested in the work of women, in the improvement of prisons, hospitals, and reformatories. The useful lives and writings of Octavia and Florence Hill, who have done much for improving the housing of the poor, cannot be studied too carefully.
ARNOLD TOYNBEE.
One of the most interesting modern developments of enlight- ened charity and Christian socialism in England is the Oxford University movement in the great city of London. A few years ago Arnold Toynbee, tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, and a company of his friends, graduates of that institution, took hold of the almost hopeless task of reforming East London. "For several months in successive years," says Professor Jowett, the biographer of Toynbee, " he resided in Whitechapel, and undertook the duties of a visitor for the Charity Organization Society. There he lived in half- furnished lodgings, as far as he could after the manner of working men, joining in their clubs, discussing with them (sometimes in an atmosphere of bad whiskey, bad tobacco, bad drainage) things material and spiritual-the laws of Nature and of God." Toynbee set himself resolutely against some of the extreme socialistic views of men who had been excited by
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agitators and misled by theorists. Indeed, he lost his life (1882), at the early age of thirty, in combating economie error upon the lecturer's platform. He was, however, no champion of the " dismal science." He was one of the most gifted apos- tles of the New Political Economy 1 which means humanity in business and everyday life. Toynbee understood affairs, both high and low. He was the treasurer of Balliol College, Oxford, and the true friend of the workingman. If you would know what he thought about Political Economy, read his published lectures on the Industrial Revolution in Eng- land, together with a short memoir of the author by Professor Jowett, master of Balliol College (Rivingtons, London, 1884). If you would know what people are beginning to think about Toynbee and his work, read the short sketch of "Toynbee Hall," in the May number (1887) of The Century.
Although the young economist died, his friends took up his social mission and established a colony of Oxford graduates in East London, the workingmen's quarter. Money was raised; Toynbee Hall was erected. There these students live and work. The building is the headquarters of the organized charities of East London; it contains a lecture-hall, where popular instruction and good concerts are given. Classes in history and political economy, reading clubs, singing classes, drawing classes, magic lantern illustrations of geography, instruction for the deaf and dumb, training in the practical arts,-all these things and many more have been instituted at Toynbee Hall in the notorious East End. In Lend a Hand, May, 1887, there is an article upon Toynbee's work, by the Rev. J. S. Gilman, showing that between twenty and thirty university men were engaged last year in charitable work in connection with Toynbee Hall. Expenses were met by grad-
1 The change which is coming over English economic thought is most decided at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It is well represented by the article on "Political Economy," by J. K. Ingram, of Trinity College, Dublin, in the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
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uates and undergraduates of Oxford and other universities. Indeed, the whole work of Toynbee Hall is sometimes spoken of as " The Universities' Settlement in East London."
It is worthy of note that these young Englishmen do not affect any appearance of roughness in their dress and manner, nor any austerity in their mode of life. Toynbee Hall is really an English University Club established in East London. University-men have comfortable, well-furnished rooms, with private libraries and all the conveniences of student-life that are possible in a university colony. To affect asceticism and poverty would be to repeat the mistake of mediæval monks. The idea of the men of Toynbee Hall is to carry university- culture into the very heart of East London in social, civilizing, reforming ways. Workingmen do not think any the less of these manly, athletic young fellows because they live like gen- tlemen. On the contrary, East London people are proud of having university men as neighbors and would perhaps send them all to Parliament, to represent the labor party, if that were possible by an East-End plébiscite. Toynbee Hall has all the advantages of a modern English Club and all the virtues of a Benedictine monastery. It is a centre of learning and civilization in a savage district. It is a shining example of well-ordered, social life. Every workingmen's club in the East End will sooner or later be improved and elevated by the influence of Toynbee Hall.
It is an interesting and suggestive fact that a work similar to the social mission of Oxford students in London has been for some time in progress in the poorer quarters of the city of New York. A few college graduates, some from Amherst, men studying theology or practising law, and two or three young instructors connected with Columbia College, are carrying the germs of moral and social reform into the very worst regions of the metropolis. At least one College-man has taken comfortable lodgings in lower New York and often invites a few poor people to his cheerful rooms for a pleasant evening to meet his student friends. This healthy, hearty
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spirit of good-fellowship and social endeavor, without cant and sham, is the result of various influences, ethical, religious, and personal. Not the least is that of Mr. Stanton Coit and other Amherst men. Some idea of what sort of moral leaven is working among some of the college and university men of New York City, and elsewhere, may be had from an article on the Christian Socialists, in the Political Science Quarterly for June, 1886, by Dr. Edwin R. A. Seligman. It is a most appreciative sketch of the life-work of Frederick Denison Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and of the modern English move- ment toward the application of Christian ethics to actual life. Christian realism or secularized Christianity is by no means confined to England. It pervades France and Germany. It crops out in Russia in Tolstoi, the Russian novelist, who lives and works among his peasants. It is the old spirit in new and practical forms.
SOCIOLOGICAL NOVELS.
Toynbee Hall is the headquarters of the " Beaumont Trust " which is the economic basis of the People's Palace, opened by the Queen May 14, 1887, but foreshadowed by Charles Kingsley's " Alton Locke" and Walter Besant's " All Sorts and Conditions of Men." (Besant describes the People's Palace in the Contemporary Review for February, 1887.) These novels, together with Besant's "Children of Gibeon," throw a · flood of light upon the actual condition of the working classes of England, their mode of life, their natural attitude toward their own elevation, toward capital, and the higher organiza- tions of society, whether school, college, church, or state. Inval- uable suggestions are given to well-disposed persons, showing them how they may succeed in giving practical shape to their philanthropic efforts, so as to avoid disappointment and waste of energy. Sociological novels like these, and George Eliot's " Felix Holt," and Miss Fothergill's Lancashire stories, have already accomplished great good in England. That country, in spite of its landlordism and class-distinctions, is many years
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nearer the enlightenment of human selfishness, nearer the ultimate harmony of capital and labor, nearer the economic organization of Christian charity, nearer self-help and honest government than is our own country. The way to an appre- ciation of these facts lies through English social science and a study of the work actually in progress in English manufac- turing districts, where workingmen in many instances, through successful organization, have become small capitalists and whence they send to Parliament, instead of ignorant dema- gogues, men of intelligence and property, who are really the best friends of the common people. The time is surely coming in America, if it is not already here, when workingmen will recognize that there are other forms of labor than the work of men's hands ; that their own brain and skill and economic thrift are forms of capital. Indeed the labor of capital and the capital of labor will some day become convertible terms.
WORKINGMEN'S CLUBS.
An article in the Christian Union for May 5, 1887, shows that, at the present time, there are in London about one hundred workingmen's clubs, or voluntary, self-supporting labor associations. They are most numerous in East London and their membership varies from 250 to 1,000. They have their own halls of assembly, often a billiard-room or restaurant. Frequently the clubs have reading-rooms and lecture-halls. Lectures are usually given on Sunday. The opinions of the laboring classes are moulded in these clubs. Here are the centres of agitation upon economic and political questions. These clubs are often the scenes of noisy discussion and of socialistic argumentation : but the English workingman is usually a very sensible fellow, far more likely to be moved by practical considerations than by mere theories of the recon- struction of society. Walter Besant says, in his article on the Amusements of the People, (Contem. Rev., March, 1884) " our English workingman is not a firebrand, and though he listens
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to an immense quantity of fiery oratory, and reads endless fiery articles, he has the good sense to perceive that none of the destructive measures recommended by his friends are likely to improve his own wages or reduce the price of food." In very many instances, as in our own country, the working- man's instinct and judgment upon public questions are very sound.
A valuable article on the Political Education of Working- men appeared in the Boston Advertiser, October 27, 1882, describing the work of the Social and Political Education League, of which Professor J. R. Seeley, of Cambridge, is president, and of which London is the centre. The work consists of lectures by educated men upon questions of the day. The lectures are given in the workingmen's halls and clubs, wherever an opportunity is afforded. The necessary expenses, cost of advertising, etc., are met by the local organi- zation. Such subjects are treated as Cavour and Modern Italy, Bismarck and Socialism, the Constitution of the United States, the Participation of Labor in the Profits of Capital, etc. The work of this Education League is not partisan. It is the idea of Professor Seeley that the English people, like university students, can be taught to study politics and social problems in a scientific, unprejudiced way. "He has com- pletely renovated historical studies in his own university of Cambridge, and he is of the opinion that the same kind of work which has been carried on amongst university students might, on a more limited scale, be undertaken amongst the more intelligent workingmen." Some of the leading pro- fessors of England, James Bryce, Bonamy Price, and A. V. Dicey, have taken a part in this useful work.
There is also in England, among the workingmen, a great deal of political education along party-lines. For several years, the liberal party has been vigorously engaged in the propaganda of liberal doctrines among the workingmen by means of popular lectures. The machinery of workingmen's clubs is everywhere employed. The great centres of activity are London, Birmingham, and Manchester.
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A most interesting development among the common people is the parliamentary debating society, for the discussion of public questions. It is based upon the forms of procedure now in vogue in the house of commons. The societies have their speaker and sergeant-at-arms; the mace plays its ancient part in preserving order ; there is a ministerial party and an opposition ; bills are introduced and debated with all due for- mality. These miniature parliaments are awakening political intelligence throughout all England. As a means of education they are quite as valuable as New England town-meetings. England is re-creating herself politically by this popular exer- cise of free speech and the forms of self-government.
UNIVERSITY-EXTENSION LECTURES.
An instructive account of the remarkable sociological experiment now in progress in the manufacturing district of Manchester was lately given by one of its representatives, Mr. Rowley, to the students of history and political science at the Johns Hopkins University and was reported in the Bal- timore papers (Sun and American) for April 6, 1887. Mr. Rowley described the successful co-operative efforts of the workingmen and their friends to make life more tolerable among the cinder heaps of that great manufacturing city. He told us of the system of "University-Extension " lectures which are given under the auspices of a workingmen's asso- ciation or labor institute. This system of education is not superimposed upon the men, but they themselves, under good leadership, have organized it and pay for it, at least in part. The workingmen, through their secretary, send up to the Uni- versity of Oxford asking for a lecturer on English history or Political Economy.1 The University Senate appoints the
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