THE CHARITABLE ELEMENT IN SOCIAL WORK
The “charities directories” of New York[6] and Philadelphia[7] offer the most inclusive available lists of the various types of social work. For present purposes it will be sufficient to review them by groups. Duplications, omissions, and extraneous inclusions (all legitimate for the purposes of the directories) make the figures of agencies of each type inaccurate but they serve to show the multiplicity as well as the range of social work undertakings.
| New | Philadelphia | |||
| York | ||||
| Agencies having to do with health | 412 | 224 | ||
| Child welfare agencies | 233 | 147 | ||
| Settlements, social centers and housekeeping centers | 227 | 608 | ||
| Relief societies | 180 | 102 | ||
| Societies for civic and economic betterment by means of surveys, investigations, education of the public, etc. | 157 | 369 | ||
| Adult homes | 136 | 112 | ||
| Agencies for obtaining or providing employment | 123 | 46 | ||
| Special educational opportunities, agricultural, musical, etc. | 118 | 71 | ||
| Philanthropic agencies with a predominantly religious | 96 | 191 | ||
| Agencies interested in naturalization, colonization, and work for immigrants | 91 | 28 | ||
| Correctional and protective agencies | 81 | 54 | ||
| Societies serving special groups | 81 | 60 | ||
| Negroes | 29 | 36 | ||
| Soldiers, sailors, or their dependents | 25 | 10 | ||
| Clergymen | 8 | |||
| Medical men | 7 | |||
| Indians | 5 | |||
| Artists | 4 | |||
| Firemen | 3 | |||
| Recreational facilities | 63 | 88 | ||
| Banking, loan and saving societies | 23 | 10 | ||
| Of which burial societies are | 10 | 4 | ||
| Milk stations, diet kitchens and lunch rooms | 20 | 23 | ||
| Conferences and federations which include social work agencies | 12 | 20 | ||
| Legal aid societies | 11 | 2 | ||
| Societies for the protection of animals | 9 | 14 | ||
In cross section no obvious, no easily discernible bond appears among these diverse agencies. An eleemosynary purpose, the first suggestion of most laymen, is indignantly repudiated by the modern social worker and can be, in many cases, categorically disproved. All are benevolent, but so also are educational, religious, artistic and other undertakings not commonly considered social work.
It is a standing rule of science that if you can see nothing crosswise you must try squinting lengthwise. If a present form will not answer your questions look back along its history and consider its origin—study its evolution and genetics. Such a policy with respect to social work brings us promptly to a strong clue.
The interests of social work have wandered far from those of old-fashioned charity and “mere charity” has now a bad name, but we of this generation knew social work before it came of age and when we hear it repudiating charity we recognize the act of a thankless child denying an unfashionable parent. The oldest of the schools was called until 1919 the “New York School of Philanthropy” and the same word appeared in the names of the Chicago school and others. The “Survey,” the accepted general organ of the profession (if it is a profession), was until 1905 published as “Charities” and for three years more as “Charities and the Commons.” What is now the “National Conference of Social Work” was organized as the “Conference of Charities and Corrections” and kept that title right down to 1917.
We may therefore push our investigation back a step farther and for the question “what is social work?” substitute the less difficult inquiries “what was charity and by what modifications did social work develop from it?” However far apart these two may at present seem it is a patent fact that social work developed from charity and along the route of that development there is hope of enlightenment as to the essential nature of social work.
Charity in one sense is the name of a human quality—that which “suffereth long and is kind.” With this sense of the word the present inquiry is not concerned but with a more completely objective meaning. The dictionaries give it as “benevolence, liberality in relieving the wants of others, philanthropy,”[8] or “liberality to the poor, to benevolent institutions or worthy causes.”[9] The wording varies little. Philanthropy where it is described any differently from charity is merely a broader term not confined to the succor of the especially unfortunate, as “love of mankind especially as evinced in deeds of practical beneficence.”[10]
If we look at this “charity” in action we find its performance to be directed to the same ends even though we follow it back through two millenniums of Christianity and Paganism.[11] Motive and policy vary, but the tasks of charity are recrudescent and impose themselves on each successive generation in terms of the contemporary conscience. We seem, for example, to have forgotten the question which haunted sixteenth century motivation—whether faith without works avails for salvation, but we might still subscribe to a contemporaneous plan of action which demanded “the suppression of vagrant beggars, the punishment of impostors” and “a rational organization of benefits under the control of the municipal authorities.”[12] The task is still with us.
This so adaptable and so perdurable “charity,” while constantly changing its terms remains always in essence a free will offering made to those who are in some fashion especially in need. It may consist of material benefits or of services. An authoritative historian of English philanthropy says in his nearest approach to a definition that “Philanthropy, in common with other terms in general use, is difficult, or more probably incapable of strict definition. We may perhaps safely say that it proceeds from the free will of the agent, and not in response to any claim of legal right on the part of the recipient.” “The greater part of philanthropy may be said to consist in contributions of money, service or thought, such as the recipient has no strict claim to demand and the donor is not compelled to render.”[13]