Mr. Wright has no medical training. He is a social worker with a business twist. His new appointment illustrates the growing tendency today to put at the head of great specialized institutions, men who have a broad social outlook combined with executive power, but minus specialized training.
HOWELL WRIGHT
The City Hospital has been a bit too professional in the past. It has looked very closely to its diagnosis and temperature charts and instruments. But almost no thought has been given to the human and social background of its patients, and patients “cured” of physical ills have been turned out with all their social ills still festering, the inevitable result being that they speedily returned to the City Hospital to be “cured” again.
The hope is that Mr. Wright will make of the City Hospital a social institution, looking backward and forward into causes and effects.
Since Mr. Wright received his master’s degree from Yale University in 1907 he has served as special agent of the Massachusetts S. P. C. C. and as general secretary of the Norwood Civic Association. During the past year as superintendent of the Cleveland Associated Charities his chief move has been the abandonment of the general employment bureau for the unskilled, which had been conducted by the Associated Charities since 1886. After a searching study of the charitable field and a special study of such bureaus in other places it was decided to transfer this work to the State Employment Bureau in the city and the experiment has so far justified itself. Mr. Wright’s service has also been notable in bringing into use simple records, centralized purchasing and smoothly systematic office methods.
Sidney B. Bock, acting head resident of Pillsbury Settlement House, Minneapolis, has been elected head resident of Neighborhood House in Detroit, Michigan. This settlement is just completing a new building, having been in rented quarters since its founding in 1909.
Berkeley G. Tobey, until recently secretary of the National Council Boy Scouts of America, has become business manager of the Masses Publishing Company.