Part 1 (1/2)
Friendly Visiting among the Poor.
by Mary Ellen Richmond.
PREFACE
This little volume is intended as a handbook for those who are beginning to do charitable work in the homes of the poor, whether as individuals or as representatives of some church, or of some religious society, such as the King's Daughters, the Epworth League, or the Christian Endeavor Society. The term ”friendly visitor” does not apply to one who aimlessly visits the poor for a little while, without making any effort to improve their condition permanently or to be a real friend to them. Friendly visiting, as distinguished from district visiting, originated with the charity organization societies, some of which are indefatigable in training volunteers to do effective work in the homes of the poor. Though I should be glad to find that my book was of some service to these societies, it was not prepared for their use alone, and no {vi} mention is made, therefore, of the organization of visitors into district conferences. For inexperienced workers, who need leaders.h.i.+p in their charity, there can be no better training than the meetings of a well-organized conference under a capable chairman, and even the most experienced, by keeping in close touch with such a conference, can do more effective work.
The suggestions herein contained are not to be taken as all applicable to the work of any one visitor. Friendly visitors that tried to adopt them all would have to abandon their other interests, and their other interests make them more useful friends to the poor. Like the words in a dictionary, some suggestions will be of service to a few workers, and others will be found applicable to the work of many.
In addition to the standard authorities mentioned under General References, a list for supplementary reading will be found at the end of each chapter. These lists are in no sense a bibliography of the subject. A handbook such as this is chiefly useful in suggesting further inquiry, and, for beginners, I have thought best to include a number of references out of the {vii} beaten track to stories and magazine articles that seemed ill.u.s.trative of the matter in hand.
It will be seen that I have borrowed much in direct quotation in the following pages from those who have preceded me in writing about the poor, but my debt does not end here. Whatever I may be said to know about charitable work--my whole point of view and inspiration in fact--can be traced to certain definite sources. To some of the leaders of the Charity Organization Society of London, to Miss Octavia Hill, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, and Mr. C. S. Loch, it will be evident to my readers that my obligation is great. It will be evident also that I have been helped by Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell and other workers in New York, who, against such odds, are making advances in the reform of munic.i.p.al abuses; and by that group too who, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Miss Jane Addams, have given us, at Hull House in Chicago, so admirable an object lesson in the power of neighborliness. But more than to any other teachers, perhaps, I am indebted to those members of the a.s.sociated Charities who organized Boston's friendly visitors nineteen years ago, and have {viii} led them since to increasing usefulness.
Their reports have been my most valuable source of information. If I do not name also my friends and fellow-workers here in Baltimore, it is not because I fail to bear them individually most gratefully in mind.
BALTIMORE, January, 1899.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Proceedings of National Conferences of Charities and Correction, 25 volumes, especially portions containing reports of sections on Child-Saving and Organization of Charities. The Conference Reports const.i.tute the best American authority on charities. Special papers in the Reports are noted in this book after the appropriate chapters.
Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, 1893, especially volumes on ”Care of Children”
and ”Organization of Charities.” Published by Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore.
”Homes of the London Poor,” Octavia Hill. For sale by New York State Charities Aid a.s.sociation, 25 cents.
”Essays,” Octavia Hill. For sale by Boston a.s.sociated Charities; price, 10 cents.
”Rich and Poor,” Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet.
”How to help the Poor,” Mrs. James T. Fields.
”Public Relief and Private Charity,” Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell.
”American Charities,” A. G. Warner.
”Hull House Maps and Papers.”
FRIENDLY VISITING AMONG THE POOR
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
There is a certain development in the English novel of which I have long seemed to be vaguely conscious. At one time I hoped to set myself the task of tracing it, though I have since relinquished all thought of this as too ambitious. The movement--if, indeed, there be such a movement--has always pictured itself to my mind as the march of the plain and common people into the foreground of English fiction. I venture to introduce the idea here, though it may appear foreign to my subject, as ill.u.s.trating another and equally important movement in the development of charitable work.
Should any one ever turn over the pages of our two centuries' stock of novels, with a view {2} to tracing this gradual development of interest in the poor and unfortunate, he would find, of course, that facts have a tantalizing way of moving in zigzags whenever one is anxious that they should move forward in a straight line; but he would probably find also that, in the earlier attempts of the novel writer to picture the poor, they were drawn as mere puppets on which the richly endowed heroes and heroines exercised their benevolence. Very likely he would discover that, when at last the poor began to take an important part in the action of the story, we were permitted to see them at first only through a haze of sentimentality, so that, allowing for great advances in the art of novel writing between the time of Richardson and the time of d.i.c.kens, we still should find the astonis.h.i.+ng characterizations of ”Pamela” reflected in the impossible virtues and melodramatic vices of d.i.c.kens' poor people.