Second.—The self-support of weaker classes through voluntary associations among themselves, such as labor movements.

Third.—The proper kind of legal protection, such as factory, and woman and child labor laws, safeguards in factory work, the minimum wage, and accident laws.

Fourth.—Rational charity, by which cases of unusual necessity can be cared for. This charity should act as a temporary agency and should not become permanent, as in that case it tends to pauperism.

Fifth.—Eugenics, by which the physically and mentally unfit, who contribute largely to the pauper class, may be eliminated from society and prevented from propagating a second generation.

Modern charity is more democratic than older charity, and in its workings material aid is made subordinate to moral aid. It is optimistic and believes that radical improvements in social conditions are possible. It believes that the family should always be a self-supporting group, that charity should try to make the poverty-stricken family self-supporting, and that the family should be kept together.

One of the improvements in modern charity is what is known as organized charity, which is a sort of clearing house for the charities of a community. Organized charity does not extend material aid so much as it attempts to find work for needy individuals and thus do away with poverty by putting the family on a self-supporting basis. Organized charity would do away with the begging pauper and require him to present his case at the headquarters of the society, where an investigation of the necessities of his particular case could be made and an effort to find suitable employment for him undertaken. The individual who wished to contribute to charity would contribute to the central organization instead of to the wandering beggar. This would have two distinct benefits to society, as it would prevent the disagreeable sights often encountered where begging is allowed in public, and it would prevent the individual member of society from being imposed upon by a beggar who might be in sufficiently good physical condition to undertake work which would bring in enough to maintain himself and his family.

The question of organized charity in Porto Rico has been suggested at different times, but it has never met with any great popular response, due to the customs and traditions of a charity-giving people. The Island to-day has a large number of paupers who are entirely dependent upon the charity which they receive through begging, and the custom of giving in response to the requests of these beggars is so widespread, that at the present time organized charity would have a most difficult field of work to undertake.

The Island of Porto Rico is prosperous. In the last fiscal year there was a surplus of about $15,000,000 of exports over the imports into the Island; but the distribution of wealth in Porto Rico is not equalized. It has been estimated that the wealth of the Island is in the hands of about 15 per cent of the population, and that the remaining 85 per cent are practically dependent upon uncertain labor and wage conditions for their maintenance. The per capita wealth of a country determines to a great degree the financial situation as far as the average individual is concerned. From the following list of per capita wealth in some of the leading countries, it will be possible to estimate how the average Porto Rican compares with the average citizen of other countries in this regard. The following list is based on statistics of 1909:

Great Britain—percapitawealth$1,442
France"""1,257
Australia"""1,228
United States"""1,123
Denmark"""1,104
Canada"""949
Belgium"""734
Germany"""707
Spain"""548
Austria Hungary"""499
Greece"""485
Italy"""485
Portugal"""417
Russia"""296
Porto Rico"""182

From the above table it will be seen that the average individual in Porto Rico is comparatively poor.