The herald., 1894-12-18
UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENTS,
A Statement of the Fundamen-
tai Principles.
Settlements in America and Abroad
Enumerated.
The Friday Morning Club DevoteE n
Session to Papers tho Vital
Subject of Modern
Life.

last week, a large audience assem- bled
to listen to papers on the University
Settlement. The first, by Miss Maud
B. Foster, who is college graduate and
the secretary of the Los Angeles Settle
ment association, ia printed below. Mrs.
Ernest K. Foster, the secretary OF the
club, read a very interesting pa
per from DR.. Dorothea Lummis on the
work in New York; and Miss stoddard
spoke of the local settlements, saying
there was room for several here, that
the settlement at No. 629 Upper New
High street, where successful club work
is being carried on, is but beginning,
and that the matter is o civic one and
should be of vital Importance to all the
people of Loo Angeles.
Miss Foster commenced by saying :
Why should this mode of living have
any special name? 1t should be such q
natural life that it no more invites an
appellation than does the existence in
any one of our own homes.
A settlement is usually residence OF
four or five or more men or women.
Some of these men and women have
daily occupations, and leaving home In
the morning return to their house at
night. Others having more leisure give
time to the domestic and social life of
the hour; they enjoy and cultivate the
acquaintance of their neigh bors, and
social clubs are formed. Almost always
the life OF the house is go attractive that
the club increases in mem bership, new
ones are formed, and as we see in Hull
house, the home enlarges its capacity
and becomes the nucleus around which
gather multiplicity Of clubs. Very nat
urally the life Of the neighborhocd C en-
ters here. Assuming that there is q
peculiarity about this life-it lies per-
haps in this fact: The men and
women who make their homes are usu-
ally cultivated persons who could have
chosen better environment.
A wropg is also done to the people
who visit their homes when the aim ls
to make the life institutional; as the
'dock striker" remarked 20 his English
friend, a university settlement mani
hate these West-End settlements. Set
Element indeed! the very word suggests
that we are savages !" Surround the
work with wrong ideas. deprive it OF its
naturalness and you take away its chief
power for good.
However, the word "settlement sign"
is current among us and am glad of an
opportunity to tell you something about
it.
The fundamental principles OF the life
are as old ss Christian civilization.
These same primo pies had their more
perfect development in the democratic
movement which has permeated every
phase of our modern life.
A noted economist says: To England
first we must 60 to study the great al
truistic movements of tins day.
Here sit 10 being gradually realized
that there are great masses of people,
who, amid the unrestricted operation Of
social and economic forces, have never
had any fair opportunity in life at all /;
and who have been from the beginning
inevitably condemned to the conditions
OF degraded existence"
Keeping theHa facts before us it is not
strange that within the past so years
the great English univereities have been
sending out men "filled with the sense
of humanity" Had not the Engliah
folks from Burns to our own day taught
the brotherhood of man? Wordsworth
had heard the 'still, sad music OF hu-
manity," and Shelley in his Prometheus
sang, I want no living thing to suffer
pain. Who can say that Edward Dem
ison's Oxford life had not been inhu :
enced by these poets when in 1867 he
went down from Oxford to Whitechapsl
and demanded work in the midst of
poverty and vice? Or, possibly. q NOR Q
potent influence had come from the
great spiritual leaders of these univer-
sities-men like Maurice and Kingsley.
After Edward DeniBon came few Ok
ford undergraduates to spend their va
cations in East London, and among
them was Arnold ToynDee. Later Toyn-
bee took lodgings in Whitechapel, and
the result of his labors is to be seen in
Toynbee hall, 80 familiar to us all.
Today in and near London there are
ten eettlements-most of them church
lements-including all denomina-
tions. Toynbee hall is really univer-
sity extension settlement, Oxford house
Church of England). Mansfield house
(Congregationalist).
The name of Mias Jane Adams OF
Hull house, Chicago. stands out pres
eminontly as one of the head workers OF
the most successful social settlement in
America. But you have had Miss Ads
dams with you, go IEhall not touch upon
her work nor anticipate your lstter from
the Delaney atreet settlement, which is
the oldest in America.
There are more than Is well organized
settlements in the United States-Bos-
ton, New York, Philadelphia, Cincin-
natl, Pittsburg-all the induatrial CEN
ters of this country have one or more
homes OF this kind. Within the past
year large honme, "Kingsley house,
has been opened in Pittsburg. 1t ia in
one Of the mill districts of the city, and
its success is phenomenal. This settle
ment is exceptional, in having among
its board of directors clergymen of ell
denominations, from Romanist to Uni
tartan.
DR.. Hodges, the dean of the Divinity
school at Cambridge, Macs, was largely
instrumental in opening this house.
Kingsley house has been moHt fortunate
in its friends. Public baths, not unlike
tho Sutro baths of Ssn Francisco, are
about to be opened for the Kingsley
house neighborhood.
The influence OF Miss Addama and Mr..
Reynolds in San Francisco haH found ex.
preBsion in the formation there of the
sSan Francisco Settlement association, -
OF which Prof. Bernard Workg is presi-
don't.
But thero arc thras settlements in
which l feel all women should have e
peculiar interest-those are she settls :
ments directly nnder the Collage Settle.
mente associations.
THIS fourth annual report o; this asso-
piation shows that II wonen'S colleges
are helping to support these settlements
--one il Boston, one N New York and