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 594 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

instance, in the case of weak or sick persons, or widows with a number of children, or orphans, etc.; it becomes a necessity, however, when we are dealing with able-bodied men, whose willingness to work it is extremely difficult to ascertain outside of such an institution. The error of England and America in the application of this principle lies only in the fact that it has been made somewhat too general ; all sorts and classes of people are received in the workhouse without distinction. But in both these countries this danger is met in a most happy manner, viz., by the founding of special institutions and homes for the sick, the imbecile, and for children, and (largely through private philanthropy) also for the aged, for widows and orphans. In this way the range of the inmates of the workhouse is limited. But there is yet another respect in which this relation of public and private charities is of importance to the development of poor relief in general. Naturally enough the state and the community will not undertake a branch of poor relief which is already fully provided for by private effort ; this is very gener- ally true of the work for children in Germany. And yet it makes no small difference whether a particular branch of poor relief is cared for by public organs or depends entirely upon the uncontrolled charity of private individuals.

The difference is to be found not so much in the results of a public and a private charity, as in the motives, and in the dif- ference which exists between public and private institutions in general. In themselves the various arrangements are all alike ; the dollar received through a public charity looks exactly like that given by a private individual ; the bed in a public hospital does not differ from that in a private institution, except that the furnishings in a private institution, such as the " Girard Col- lege," are likely to be far more elegant than those of a public institution can ever be. In France and Italy, as well as in Alsace-Lorraine, the so-called voluntary system is in vogue, i. e., poor relief is not enjoined upon the state by law ; and yet the state and the community do very much ; for the private charities of the bureaux de bienfaisance are by no means able to meet the