The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1894-11-10


organizing power and a spirit of CO.
operation which do not yet exist on
earth. But the very short history of
the charity organizing movement al
ready discloses a tendency to pass
beyond the co-ordinating of rescue
and relief societies to the installation
of new and wider agencies of benefi-
cence. This tendency is most strong
ly marked in those societies that ad-
here most closely to their educative
and administrative functions. A
charity organizing society, chiefly
composed, as it ought to be, of the
heads of the benefcent agencies of
the community. and not of theorists
and doctrinaires only, excites no jeal-
ousy and awakens no rivalry. 1t is
charity council, offering it's service
equally to all, drawing the various
beneficent agencies closer to each
other, comprehensively surveying the
whole field of helpful action; capable
by its situation of detecting wasteful
and ineffective methods, of suggest
ing and installing such new agencies
as the needs of the community re-
quire, and of exerting wide and
healthful educative influence upon
the people.
Each church and charity society,
and all benevolent individuals, find
themselves stronger for good works
through such cooperation; and the
organizing society tends to become
the concentration-point of all the
forces of social redemption and pro-
gress.
Professor M. j. brennan, of Vassar
College, has recently said that EAST
ern Massachusetts is probably the
most highly organized community in
the world" 1t is not necessary to
commit ourselves on the side of this
rather startling generalization, in
order to use it in illustration of the
development of civic organization,
whose course is roughly this: First
government, courts, and system of
support, or revenue are organized;
religion and education are organized
commerce and. exchange are organized q,
the liberal arts are organized; and in
the process of increasing the potency
of the humane forces asiley deYelop
under the communal life, it is newt
able that charity should be organized.
Organized beneficence seems a nat
ural evolution of the civic life.
Under prehensive and fede-
rated ordering, the economy and
efficacy of social benefcence will be
greatly enhanced. Involuntary des-
titution will be put in the way of
amendment, fraudulent mendicity
will be sternly ,epressed, no pool of
hopeless pauperism will be allowed
to form, no wall of need will pass un-
needed, nor will the sorer need that
does not announce itself be over
looked, the conscienceless greed that
preys upon necessity and ignorance
will be detected and punished; we
shall be able to "break the Jaws of
the unrighteous, and deliver his prev
out of his teeth;" no neglected child
hood will cry aloud in our streets,
nor any feeble old age wander shell
terless there; the present enormous
waste of human impulse will be eturned
into the channels of effective melio-
ration, the scope of benefcent action
will be widened to include the range
of social defect; and charity, re-
deemed from its chaotic Ineffective
ness, will become the synonym of the
strong, wise ana tender providence
which the community exercises over
its disheartened, dependent and de-
linquent members.