A definition of social work: A thesis in sociology

by Alice S. Cheyney

Ten papers no different in import from those in other sections which have been cited as discussing conditions created by the war.

1919 and 1920—UNITING OF NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN IN AMERICA.

State immigrant commission, labor organizations and public education as Americanizers, the foreign language worker and foreign language press, foreign organizations and family welfare, democracy and immigration, neighborhood life, and the treatment of immigrant heritages.

Such, in briefest possible outline is the scope of the annual conference on social work. What have its papers contributed to the correction or expansion of a definition?

The first proposition of the tentative definition was that all forms of social work originated in a spontaneous effort to extend benefits. How is this affected by the testimony of the conference? In the first place it is abundantly confirmed. The conference papers deal pre-eminently with pioneering in the extension of benefits and opportunities. The phraseology does not always suggest this but one has only to look beyond the phraseology to the action in order to find it. If we look at the first section we see it to be in effect proposing that the whole community shall deliberately and without delay rearrange not only schools and home life but industry and general living conditions so as to give to all its children opportunity and encouragement such as are now given only to the most fortunate. We find it advocating a scheme of child welfare on a county basis which shall seek out “all children in need of care for any reason” and demanding enforcement of proper health precautions for the children of unenlightened parents and a real chance in life for the illegitimate child. Among the titles of this one section at one conference appear “Progress Toward Better Laws,” “Planks in a 1920 Platform,” “Lessons from North Carolina,” “A Community Program, etc.”[33] But these platforms and programs are not to be ascribed to the community in any sense except that of being proposed for the community as a whole by social workers. At the same conference they are discussing “Social Workers as Interpreters” of social conditions and methods of getting “publicity” for their aims.[34] The same sort of title takes up the tale in the next section, a “Program” again, “Aims and Methods” twice, “A Plan,” and so on throughout the conference. Although other professions, education and medicine for example, are constantly busy jacking up standards, their general undertakings are fully accepted. For all regular purveyances of education and medicine the community has given a blanket order and expects to pay “within reason.” Social work is in a different case for it is constantly trying to put over something which is still but tentatively and experimentally accepted and depends root and branch on the willingness of some people to do, out of hand, for others.[35]

The president of the conference in 1920 referred to a “belief in human improvableness and a willingness to tackle the job.”[36] That is as far as the conference usually philosophises in this direction. And this is the sort of phraseology that makes one forget that social work is extending benefits—this casual reference to tackling the job. It is another of the paradoxes in the development of social work (we have already noted science rescuing personality), that when charity offered only a minimum of rough food, uniform raiment and herded shelter to the utterly destitute there was much made of the generosity of the donor, but now when social work has been carried to a point where it often provides for the handicapped a great deal better than the rank and file manage to provide for themselves it is taken to be a case of noblesse oblige.

We may read in the “Observations of a Philanthropist” penned a century ago that “It’s greatly for the interests of charity that the objects of it should be respectful and grateful. We think our kindness in a manner repaid when it is thankfully received; it’s a pleasure then to have done it and an incitement to do more,”[37] or in a “hospital” report that “the number of proper objects are amply sufficient to employ the bounty of the rich.”[38]

The difference here indicated is not accounted for by the fact that these were the observations of philanthropists while the conference is composed of professional social workers for whom benefaction is all in the day’s work. As has been already indicated, the papers read at the conference are not all by social workers. Furthermore, the “incitement” now employed to get from all manner of men financial support for the undertakings of social work is of a very different order. Let any one consider the appeals which come to his desk. They contain little to rouse his vanity and the offer of an opportunity to acquire merit is almost as uncommon. The degree of need and the certainty of accomplishment are the things never omitted.

This suggests the cause for change. A century ago need might equally well have been urged, but what could then have been promised of accomplishment? All that was then expected was surcease of the hour’s suffering. That is a fit subject of congratulation as when a complaisant philanthropist wrote of the London of his time there “is not a disease that can afflict human nature nor a want which the varying conditions of man can require but finds an open asylum, a resort ready prepared with the needful accommodation for reception, comfort, instruction and cure, and with the exception of a few cases entirely free of expense.”[39]

But what is that compared with the great modern adventure of eliminating poverty and holding disease at bay? Science has brought to charity faith and hope in terrestrial terms. The historian who unearthed the above statement remarks, “In theory, society consists of a large number of charitable people; in fact the number of those who can be properly so described is a small one. The few who are really in earnest in their desire to alleviate distress even at the cost of considerable expenditure of time and money, are surrounded by a multitude of persons who are willing to assist but only provided they can do so at no great inconvenience to themselves. This lower power of sympathy passes gradually through the stages of languid interest to complete indifference.”[40]