Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

Southern Work

Everywhere among women’s associations the call for social service is sounding forth. The spirit of this movement is admirably illustrated in an article bearing the title of “Women and Social Service,” written by Mrs. R. R. Cotten, of North Carolina, for the Social Service Quarterly:

The term Social Service means work for the welfare of humanity, and there can be no doubt as to the relation between that work and women. Primarily and ultimately it is work for women. As the givers of life, as the mothers of humanity, their activities must be unremitting in the effort to promote the welfare of humanity. In the past their efforts were devoted to the welfare of their families, and to a limited extent reached the communities in which they lived, but now few fields of service are closed to them.

The world has realized that the welfare of a few cannot be assured except by securing the welfare of all, while the security of all assures the safety of our own special few. Christian effort is no longer limited to the churches. The human heart has overflowed with a great yearning to make this earth better by filling it with healthier, happier, more human people. In response to this yearning everywhere heads are planning and hands are clasping in a determined effort to accomplish this result.

This desire led to the formation of the North Carolina Conference for Social Service, the aim of which is “to study and improve social, civic, moral, and economic conditions in our State, especially conditions that injuriously affect child life, or tend to perpetuate preventable ignorance, disease, degeneracy, or poverty among our people.” Every woman’s heart responds to this call to service for the benefit of the children. Every woman is interested in the investigation of the conditions which surround child life, and every woman will coöperate in seeking to remedy such conditions as are injurious.

The difficulty lies in reaching women and arousing them to the consciousness of their power and the need for their assistance. I hope all the women in the state will ally themselves with the work and “lend a hand” to the general uplift which it will bring. If they cannot all attend the conferences, they can read the Quarterly and thus keep in touch with the work, and coöperate in the effort by working at home and in their communities. They are interested in every line of thought discussed at the conferences, and can select those lines in which they are most interested for the bestowal of their energies.

In educational progress; in the promotion of public health, which necessarily includes individual health; in prison reform; in the study of eugenics; in the improvement of country life, and in all social, civic, and economic problems men need and welcome the help of women. Neither can accomplish much alone; together they must strive and overcome, together they must win or lose. Together they must attack “the conditions which injuriously affect child life” until all children shall have opportunity for development into useful citizens. This being true no one can deny that Social Service is woman’s work.

The day is past when we deluded ourselves with the thought that our responsibility ceased with the performance of our individual duties. We are jointly responsible for the existing conditions, and only by a joint effort can they be improved. Our neighbor’s welfare is our business and our neighbor is all mankind.

The power of environment to influence the life of an individual is known to all, and it is the natural duty of all women to see that all children are surrounded by conditions under which they can develop into good men and women. It may be a difficult task, it doubtless will require a long, persistent effort, but the object is well “worth while.” In the stress of busy lives men may sometimes forget these obligations, but women must ever bear them in mind, doing their own part toward improving conditions, and stimulating to renewed effort on these lines the men who forget. Together they can strive and win, remembering that the welfare of the next generation should be the very highest ambition of this generation.

The challenge of social service proclaimed by the North Carolina Conference is vigorous:

It is a challenge to the Church to prove her right to social mastery by a universal and unselfish ministry.

It is a challenge to fathers and mothers and all social workers to lift the burdens of labor from childhood and to make education universal.

It is a challenge to all citizens to rally to the leaders of social reforms, so as to secure for the nation civic righteousness, temperance, and health.

It is a challenge to American chivalry to see that justice is guaranteed to all citizens regardless of race, color or religion, and especially to befriend and defend the friendless and helpless.

It is a challenge to the present generation to show its gratitude for the heritage bequeathed to it through the toil and blood of centuries, by devoting itself more earnestly to the task of making the nation a universal brotherhood.

It is a challenge to the men who make and administer laws to organize society as a school for the development of all her citizens, rather than simply to be a master to dispose of the dependent, defective, and delinquent population with the least expense to the State.

It is a challenge to strong young men and women to volunteer for a crusade of social service, to be enlisted for heroic warfare against all destroyers of social health and justice, and to champion all that makes for an ideal national life.