(Building Construction), Member Civic Improvement Commission.
The development of the great filtration project has naturally stimulated other movements for the improvement of the public health. In this direction the municipal health department is a broadly and consistently helpful influence. The fight against tuberculosis is carried on effectively by both public and private agencies. The special commission of experts appointed by the mayor and aided financially by the Sage Foundation for tracing causes of typhoid fever aside from the water supply, will render a most important service to Pittsburgh as well as to the whole country. The successful record of the filtration plant in greatly reducing the amount of typhoid in the city, gives added point to this scientific effort to rid out the last lurking places of infection. In general, however, it must be said that the self-forgetful abandon with which many medical men in other American cities are bringing their priceless knowledge to bear upon public unsanitary conditions and unhygienic ways of life,—a type of effort which both in motive and result may almost be taken as the test of a city's progressive civilization,—has hardly as yet reached Pittsburgh. The exceptions,—notable ones,—are of the sort that prove the rule.
CHARLES F. WELLER.
Secretary of the new Associated Charities, Pittsburgh; member Pittsburgh Civic Improvement Commission; former secretary Washington Associated Charities and President's Homes Commission.
The co-ordination of charitable effort, both in its different kinds and in its different localities, is a step which needs now to be followed by the federation of agencies for social upbuilding. The playgrounds which are fast becoming the headquarters of a kind of neighborhood guild, will furnish a substantial part of the material for this comprehensive social formation. In such enterprise, organized local citizenship, especially as seen in the boards of trade, will undoubtedly afford valuable re-enforcement to the distinctively philanthropic motive. The settlement houses of which there are several, might naturally take the lead. Such a federation would ensure to each local agency information about the results of experience at every other; it would bring the momentum of concrete local knowledge to bear upon the public school system and other parts of the public administration; it would draw into the work of constructive local betterment many resourceful new individuals and new agencies, thus spreading throughout the city the new point of view in citizenship; it would bring forward from the congested sections of the city those rear detachments of citizenship without which municipal reform must continue to be shallow and casual. In the development and extension of local social organization lies much of the promise of widespread growth of public spirit in Pittsburgh. The people have a distinct capacity for the invaluable village type of loyalty. This can in due time with expanding experience be made into the most enduring type of city loyalty,—that based on neighborly co-operation gradually extended and writ large but carrying with it always that sense of reality, that nearness to the soil, in which it began.
FRANCIS J. TORRANCE.
President Pennsylvania Board of Public Charities.
Kingsley House was founded in 1894 by Rev. George Hodges, now dean of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass., but for twelve years a strong influence for realistic Christianity in Pittsburgh. It has grown to be an important center for progressive social service, and from its commanding position on a hill looking over the business section of the city it exercises an influence for social morality far beyond its immediate constituency. Its regularly organized work is gathered up into two large composite clubs, one having a membership of 600 boys and young men, the other about as many girls and young women. An average of half the total membership appears at the house daily for gymnastic training, games, industrial classes, discussions, music, etc. The tenement problem and the whole hygienic aspect of life among working people receive penetrating and persistent attention, and the importance of the service of the house in this direction is recognized throughout the city. Closely involved with such a campaign is the large country holiday work of this settlement, whereby some 4,000 persons are each summer provided for at a specially built and finely equipped vacation house.