Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/711

 PUBLIC CHARITY AND PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY 695

entrusted to him by a limited number of friends. For this rea- son assistance is more easily obtained, as a rule, from a public than from a private chanty ; very often self-help is not urged as strongly as it should be, and if the officers of public relit! not possessed of a very strong sense of responsibility, or if the district management is not very cautious and conservative, too great liberality may be the direct means of producing and mul- tiplying poverty. The experience of every country and every age might be quoted to verify these statements. We can now understand why it is that even in Germany, where the system of public poor-relief has proved very successful, there is a growing sentiment in favor of restricting public relief, in the main, to such institutions as the workhouse, all else being left to private char- ity. At present this is, in my opinion, entirely impracticable. So long as we do not insure widows and orphans against the loss of husband and father, upon whom they depend for support, we cannot think of abandoning them to the chance of private char- ity. Then, too, the public care for the sick and infirm should not only be maintained, but extended by every possible means. These things offer very little opportunity for fraud or abuse, for their external characteristics are far more easily recognized than a mere want of the means of subsistence. Moreover the misuse of accommodations and arrangements for the sick is not so likely to work harm as is fraud in the disposition of public moneys.

One thing must still be demanded on both sides of the Atlantic : the respective provinces of public poor relief and of private charities must be defined as clearly and as carefully as possible ; furthermore there must be established between the two a definite and well-ordered relation. This is recognized, in Germany, as the aim and the goal of relief work. To begin at the two extremes one might say : Essentials, necessaries of life, are to be supplied by public charity, while the furnishing of use- ful or unnecessary things, or even luxuries, shall remain the prov- ince of private charities How much shall be included in the "essentials" must, of cours- nd upon circumstances; in