INCONSIDERATE GIVING.
We deem it inaccurate to say “inconsiderate charity,” for such giving is not charitable giving. “To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” The obligation is as imperative that we shall give intelligently as that we shall give at all. The intolerable tramp nuisance with which we have been so grievously afflicted, was nourished and built up by the illy considered sentiment which found expression in the declaration of a well-known minister, who said he would refuse to give anything to the cause of missions before he would refuse a gift to the poor fellow who asked at his door for help, and in the custom of a good woman of wealth, who bought a set of crockery for tramps, and always kept a large coffee-pot full of that delightful beverage on the stove ready for the use of her frequent guests, a dozen of whom she has been known to feed in one day. There can be no doubt that a ready and full supply of this kind will develop an almost infinite demand.
A lady, prominent and well-known in New York city, whose habit was never to give to any one asking at the door, but to take the address of the applicant and investigate the case, said that in seventeen years’ experience she had never found a single deserving one among the many who had so applied; in every case a fictitious address had been given.
We can do no safe and really charitable work until such work is intelligently organized, so that deserving cases are supplied with just the kind of aid needed, and fictitious and unworthy ones are exposed and punished. We must know, either by ourselves or accredited and trusted agents, what we are doing if we are to benefit rather than curse our fellows by our so-called charities.
The friends of the negro are in danger constantly of being imposed upon by impostors, who rob the cause they desire to promote of much-needed funds. It is very easy for one who comes soliciting aid for a prospective college or church to secure testimonials that said institution is greatly needed, and that the solicitor is seeking money for a most important purpose.
It is not necessary to show, which is by no means the case, that all who come from the South asking aid for such causes are frauds, in order to give weight to our words of caution. Many of these are attempting honestly a most important work, and ought to have sympathy and material aid, but the individual to whom application is made has neither time nor facilities for making the proper investigations to establish this fact. True, the applicant has testimonials, but they need investigation no less than the applicant himself.
We know of several cases where funds have been contributed, and have been expended in the erection and maintenance of schools, which are doing honest and most valuable work, concerning which nothing but praise should be spoken, and yet nothing but the life of one man stands between this present use of these funds and an utter perversion of them. The school property is the personal property of the individual who procured the funds, and at his death will of necessity pass into the hands of others, who can do what they choose with it.
We know of one case where a wealthy man from New York, spending the winter in the South, became interested in a negro public school near his hotel. He converted the rude building into a New England school-house, supplied with first-class apparatus, and took great satisfaction in what he had done for the poor negroes. Next year the negro school was transferred to another building, and the whites made this one, with its books, globes, and philosophical apparatus, the foundation of a higher school for their own race. We believe it best for the friends of negro education to work, through some one of the various organizations which are doing this work, who are in position to do it more wisely and efficiently than they could do it; and would call attention to the following suggestions from a correspondent of the New York Tribune, as being wise and of urgent importance:
“There are associations connected with nearly every religious denomination in the country, to meet the great and terrible need of education among the millions of the emancipated and their children. These associations are under the administration of the best and most sagacious business men in our communities, and it is safe to say that the moneys committed to the custody of these associations are judiciously, desirably and economically appropriated. Of one of these associations I have personal and familiar knowledge. It has extensive colleges or universities in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, besides numerous schools scattered throughout the Southern States. Nearly $300,000 was expended by this association the past year, almost exclusively in the interest of these people, one excellent woman putting $150,000 in the treasury, to be expended in making much needed additions to colleges so utterly thronged by applicants that they were compelled to turn numbers from their doors.”