One way in which an effort might be directed toward bringing about an increase in the supply of trained visitors would be the establishment of scholarships and fellowships in schools of civics and of social work, by which able persons from among the different national groups might be encouraged to take advantage of such opportunities as those institutions provide. This procedure has been elaborated in Chapter VIII in connection with service to nondependent families.
Special funds might also be provided in connection either with the various agencies or with schools of social work, which would render possible the collection and organization of such facts as would be valuable in understanding the problems presented by families from any special group. This body of fact would, of course, increase as sound, sympathetic, and thorough work was developed.
Such studies would include information about the communities from which different groups come, as, for instance, the practice and influences prevailing in different villages in southern Italy, in Sicily, in northern Italy. The religious, national, and village festivals differ in almost every place. A native of Villa Rosa now receiving care from a public-health agency in Chicago has carefully pointed out to a visitor the differences between the festivals of Palermo and Villa Rosa. The different ways of preparing for and meeting the great events of family life, such as death, marriage, birth, are of vital importance.
Most important are the food practices, and the attitudes toward the care and discipline of children. A similar point has been developed in Chapter VIII and it need not be stressed. The fact is that while really sound and thorough case work cannot be done without such information, few agencies have such information, and all devices for accumulating it should be made use of.
The gathering of this body of information and its application require considerable time. In the meantime, while differences of opinion among the existing agencies on such questions as the use of the foreign or the native-born visitor who speaks the foreign language, the visiting housekeeper, or the specialized bureau, are being worked out, specialized agencies for dealing with the problems of the immigrant family should be developed. Such agencies as the Immigrants' Protective League could prove of very great service in discovering promising visitors, in accumulating experience as to the nature of those problems, and in furnishing opportunities to professional students for practice work under supervision.
Further, there is the question of the resources within the group and the ways in which they can be taken advantage of. Reference has been made to the problem of securing and retaining the co-operation of the national Church. There are often national charitable societies. The case worker should be able to explain the methods and purposes of her society to these immigrant societies; but often there is a complete failure to interpret, and the two agencies go their separate ways, sometimes after the demoralization of the family both try to serve.
A few years ago a group of foreign-born men, prominent in business and politics in Chicago, organized a charitable association within their own national group. They felt that the United Charities did not understand their people and were not meeting their needs. These men had no understanding of accepted case-work principles, and the superintendent of the society herself says that she does not use scientific methods and does not co-operate with the United Charities. She doubts whether her organization is doing much good, but she sees that the lack of understanding of the traditions and habits of the people on the part of the United Charities cripples their work among her people.
THE TRANSIENT FAMILY
The case-work agency as now organized might be equipped with trained foreign-speaking visitors and with visiting housekeepers or dietetic experts who know their neighborhoods, and the needs of the situation would still be far from fully met. It was pointed out in the first chapter that many immigrant families have to change their place of residence, often more than once, before they settle in a permanent home. The nature of their hardships and the slender margin of their resources have been pointed out. Special misfortune may therefore befall them at any point in the experimental period of their journey, as well as after they have reached their final and permanent place of residence.
The important moment in social treatment, as probably in any undertaking, is in the initial stages. "The first step costs." This brings us to the enormously important fact that distress outside the relatively small number of larger communities in which there are skilled case-work agencies, either public or private, will probably mean contact either with the poor-law official under the Pauper Act, if it is a question of relief,—or with some official of the county prosecuting machinery or of the inferior courts, if it is a question of discipline.