In the care and protection of the insane and the feeble-minded our country can boast of but slow progress. Many of the members of these classes are permitted to run at large and even to marry and beget their kind. Now, while our human stock is in its mass very sound and sane, there are constantly being thrown off from it these mentally defective classes. The complete obliteration of all such classes to-day would not result in their complete disappearance from the race. Others would be born as variants from normal parentage. But the evil of it all lies in the fact that we are still permitting many of these defectives to multiply, and that in the face of the fact that a normal child has never been reported among the offspring of two feeble-minded parents.
The modern service training
Of all the institutions contributing to the direct improvement of the race there is perhaps none surpassing in importance the modern training school for social workers. In New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and other large cities such may be found usually affiliated with some university or college. The general purpose is that of training men and women to go into the field of social service and apply the methods and conclusions worked out by the research student. Hitherto, much of the social work has been conducted by persons possessing merely religious zeal and enthusiasm. Their efforts were praiseworthy, but they lacked the training necessary for coping with modern educational and economic problems. The distinctive feature of the new methods is that it is based on scientific and business principles. That is, the social worker is trained in the same methodical way as the prospective lawyer or school teacher, and is also paid reasonably for his services.
The modern social worker not only proceeds with a well-defined plan, but he usually makes or requires a survey of his newly-opened field. The social survey—now becoming more common as a means of beginning a campaign of improvement in the cities—has revealed some most interesting, as well as distressing, situations in the submerged districts. The housing situation, sanitary conditions, wages and incomes of different classes, sweat-shop employment, the protection of workmen in shops and factories, child-labor conditions, and so on—these are examples of the problems of the investigator, while his tabulated reports serve to guide the social worker. Now, the duties of the latter are many, but in general they lie in the direction of improvement of the conditions as found. Among the undertakings that often fall to his lot are: establishing new social centers in congested districts, providing for new parks and playgrounds, locating reading and recreation rooms, organizing self-help and home-improvement clubs among the lower classes, conducting cooking and sewing schools, and the like.
Of special interest to the rural dweller is the fact that the modern methods of first making surveys and then applying remedial agencies is now being extended into the country districts, giving many marked results already and promising greater ones for the future.
The state doing its part
That the nation and the state are active participants in these new forms of child-conserving and man-saving endeavor is indicated on every side.
The national government has encouraged the states in the enactment of stringent child-labor laws. In the usual instance children under fourteen to sixteen years of age are prohibited from working away from home at gainful occupations. Correlated with this is the compulsory-education law in the several states.
The national and state governments have also coöperated in the enactment of laws prohibiting the adulteration of foods and foodstuffs and in enforcing better sanitation. As a result of such measures, state and local, together with the help of greatly improved hospital practice, the infant mortality in several of the large cities has been reduced more than fifty per cent in the past decade.