The district visitor is the ancestor of the friendly visitor. Brewing a bit of broth for an aged cottager, reading beside some sick-bed, sewing a warm garment for Peggy or Nancy—it is thus that our ancestors lightly skimmed the surface of social conditions. It would ill become us to speak slightingly of the work of those who have handed down to us a precious freight of human sympathy and tenderness. If heavier burdens of responsibility, more serious problems and more strenuous ideals are now imposed upon us, we have also many advantages that were undreamed of a hundred years ago. Now, if we would be charitable, and possess any power of using the forces at our command, there are hundreds of avenues of usefulness open to us where formerly there was only one, and there are hundreds of {195} agencies ready to help. We must know how to work with others, and we must know how to work with the forces that make for progress; friendly visiting, rightly understood, turns all these forces to account, working with the democratic spirit of the age to forward the advance of the plain and common people into a better and larger life.
Collateral Readings: "Friendly or Volunteer Visiting," Miss Zilpha D. Smith in Proceedings of Eleventh National Conference of Charities, pp. 69 sq. "Friendly Visiting," Mrs. Marian C. Putnam in Proceedings of Fourteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 149 sq. "Class for the Study of Friendly Visiting," Mrs. S. E. Tenney in Proceedings of Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 455 sq. "The Education of the Friendly Visitor," Miss Z. D. Smith in Proceedings of Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 445 sq. "Friendly Visiting," Mrs. Roger Wolcott in Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, 1893, volume on "Organization of Charities," pp. 108 sq. Also Miss F. C. Prideaux in same volume, pp. 369 sq. and discussion, pp. 15 sq. "Continued Care of Families," Frances A. Smith in Proceedings of Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 87 sq. "Friendly Visiting as a Social Force," Charles F. Weller in Proceedings of Twenty-fourth National Conference of Charities, pp. 199 sq. "Company Manners," Florence Converse in "Atlantic," January, 1898. (This story is not a fair picture of associated charity methods, but points out one of the dangers of spasmodic visiting.)
[1] Proceedings of Twenty-second Conference of Charities, 1895, p. 88.
[2] Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, volume on "Organization of Charities," p. 21.
[3] Eleventh Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 31.
[4] p. 27.
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APPENDIX
The illustrations of friendly visiting in the preceding pages have been given with a view to elucidating some particular part of visiting work. Some of the following instances show the possibilities and discouragements of continuous visiting, and the last illustration emphasizes an important fact in the life of poor neighborhoods; namely, the unconscious but restraining and uplifting influence of good neighbors. On this same phase of the subject, see Charles Booth's "Life and Labor of the People," Vol. I, p. 159.
Home Libraries and the Visitor.—A visitor reports that "a library has been established in the room of Mrs. ——, where the boys of the tenement house meet every Saturday afternoon to receive or exchange their books, discuss with the visitor the books they have read, listen to stories as they are read or narrated, and to play games. This little gathering seems to have improved the moral and social atmosphere of the entire tenement house."