Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/339

Rh bureau (so as to "make work the basis of relief", and by chatting over a case or two with her neighbor who is almoner for a church charity fund, or with the parish priest, or occasionally securing a bed at a hospital for a sick man, or sending a child to the day nursery (so "securing the cooperation of all charitable agencies").

Such an agent occasionally deplores that "our friendly visitors do not take the interest they do in Boston," and thinks probably they are a different kind of people there. Perhaps she says : "The conditions are so different with us; we cannot do as they do in Baltimore and Newport." Or, if she is very able and energetic, she says : "I don't want volunteers around me; let me do my work with the poor, but don't bother me with friendly visitors." The above are actual, not imaginary quotations.

The friendly visitors, few in number, wholly untrained, with- out leadership, when they do call at the office, chiefly do it to ask for more relief for their poor families. The directors have a great deal of trouble raising money, and are constantly annoyed because "it costs two dollars to give away one." The society holds an annual meeting, at which one or two ministers, usually newcomers to the city, and perhaps new converts to the modern idea of charity, make glowing speeches, rehearsing the time-honored hopes of C. O. S. Reports are read, economy in the office force commended. No one says, "We are only talking about these fine things, not doing themm" and the evils of unorganized charity flourish almost as they did before the society began. The name C. O. S. is spoiled by abuse, and there is a burnt-over district left when the society dies.

This is a sad but a painfully true history of the consequences of relief-giving by a mixed society calling itself C. O. S. That it is not true of all such societies is owing to the devotion and strength of a few individuals. It is the probable history of all.

The tendency of charitable energy to expend itself in its lowest form is analogous with the same tendency in physical energy. Just as physical energy constantly tends to waste itself in the form of radiant heat, so charitable energy tends to waste itself in the form of giving things, either at our own cost or at