Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/458

 A NEW IDEA IN SOCIAL FRATERNITY.

THE past century saw a mighty impulse toward bettering the condition of the weak. Slaves were liberated, women received recognition as rational beings, children were given rights other than those accorded by the whims of parents, and laborers were allowed to meet in self-respect, and to assert the dignity of their calling.

With this amelioration of social conditions, men of diverse classes approached each other at the close of the century in a different attitude from that which would have been possible at its beginning. Some of our most intelligent citizens not only theorized about social relations, but tried their theories by prac- tical experiments. Settlements and clubs have gone into the heart of the crowded tenement districts and have made life assume a more roseate hue to many a heavy laden one. Yet the field is so great that every new case of genuine fraternity between those in different walks of life is worth while telling to the world.

In a crowded block in San Francisco, on Tehama street, between Fifth and Sixth, stands a house where representatives of all classes of labor, and of all social conditions, meet and dis- cuss in the most friendly way all topics of human interest. The mistress of. the house, Miss Octavine Briggs, is a visiting nurse, who established herself here to be in the center of her work.

Miss Briggs is a sister-in-law of Professor Bernard Moses, of the University of California, now absent as a member of the Taft Commission in the Philippines, and most of her life has been spent amid the advantages of a university community. Intel- lectual, witty, accomplished, with a charm of personality, and an unusual understanding of human nature, she seemed fitted best for society, in the limited sense of the word ; and her friends were all surprised when she decided to win a diploma from the California Women and Children's Hospital rather than a degree from the university.

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