Evening star., 1902-03-25
FRIENDLY VISITING
TOPIC DISCUSSED BY PROBATION
AGENT WHELPLEY.
Address Delivered at Monthly Confer
ence of Charity Workers
Service of Volunteers.


ly visitors was held at the rooms of the
Associated Charities yesterday afternoon
Mr.. Philip Wheloey, the probation agent
for the board of children's guardians,
gave an address on Friendly Visiting. He
also gave a careful review of the chapter
oI, Volunteer Service found in Devine 2
Practice of Charity. Mr.. Whelpley said, in
part:
"All charity work. to be effective, to help
in the most far-reaching way, must go to
the root of things. The object OF 1t all is
to increase prosperity. and as Mr. Dev1ne
ably puts it, there are two means Of ac-
compiishing this. There are two distinct
ways in which we may increase prosperity.
We may make goods more Cheaply by i'm
proving our productive processes or we
make better use of what we have produced,
" Whlch will involve our making an even bet
ter selection among things which we are
able to buy Ard he goes on to Slft 1t
Down to the way which seems to solve the
problem most effectively and seems to get
nearer the root of the m alter than any
ether way. That is, in getting at the home.
In teaching the ignorant poor to make bet
ter use of what they have. This can only
be- done by personal contact. by extending
the hand of real friendship. Friendship In
it's widest sense. The frle ndship which
Henry Clay Trumbul says consists in low
ing rather than being loved; in being
friend rather than having Il friend in CIV
ing ones affs ctions unseitisniy and unswerv-
ingly.t another. Eot in being the object of
an"ther's affection. Where there Is such
friendship coupled with an intelligent cor
sderation of what the welfare of the family
which one befriends most requires. there
is the beginning of hope ami prosperity
Remedies Proposed.
There have been many remedies proposed.
both radical and otherwise, to solve the
problem of destitution. Mr. Devine men,
tions some of them. He says: In the eigh-
teenth century. and well on into our own.
there prevailing school of thought
that found all the explanation for misery
and social inequality in the oppressive bur
der of government, and it's accompanying
social institutions. Take off the burdens.
was the urgent cry. Man by nature is pro-
grcssve, intelligent and good He has been
held down. Let human society be left free
t. work out its own salvation and ali the
Woes we deDlOre will silently disappear
"'The best thought of those who desire So
cial reform and Improvement is nov crys-
talIiZing in the idea shat liberty-sOcial
freedom-is not Il state of nature but
positively created condition in which the
most active vigilance on the part of the COM
munity is needed to destroy new, dangerous
Srowths and to keep the field constantly
clear for the natural and fruitful plants Of
enterprise industry and honorable toll
View of Other Economists.
"Other economists have led us to think
that to make goods more cheaply by i'm
proving productive processes would increase
prosperity. Then We are told that new
wealth may mean new temptation debauch-
cry and loss of vitality, and SO loss Of
real wealth: or it may mean better schools,
more libraries. more beautiful homes, more
cOmfortS-an increase of real wealth. And
this brings us again to the fact that the
root of the matter lies in the home: that
l.;
of real wealth must be developed in the
home.
go Taste and thrift are the essentials of
home, whether in a compact city fiat or on
the wind d-Swept, suniit hillside
How shall they be developed where
they are not? There is but one way-by the
allcompelling and God-given power of per-
sonal friendship. In the schools we may
teach something Of color and form and
neatness, but there is need for an infiu-
ence that will reach adults also. 1t is a
deceptive philosophy that turns the back
upon parents as hopeless and proposes to
dren separately. We must reach and save
the family as a whole, and we must do
what we do in undisguised and unaffected
friendship for the family as whole
1.-The friendly visitor the visiting friend
whether she have any technical designation
or not and whether she be formally en-
rolled anywhere as part of corps Of
friendly visitors not, is unquestionably
the most essential element in social amelio-
ration
This work is a problem Of gradually
substituting thrift, taste good use of in
come, for carelessness. shiftlessness and ig-
nOrance. 1t is exceptional to find lack of
income the trouble. and even when it is it's
source will be found, if we trace 1t back, in
the failure to make sensible use of the in
come which was enjoyed.
Friendly Visiting.
Zone who enters into the work of friendly
visiting must have capacity for taking
genuine interest in the work and must have
faith in those whom he helps Prof Peabody
of Harvard said in a recent address: One
man goes through the world and finds it
capacity for evil and he judges it with his
ready gossip of depreciation. He may be in
all this reporting what is true or he may
be stating what is untrue; but one truth he
is reporting with entire precision-the fact
that he himself is a suspicious and ungener-
Gus man. The cynic looks over the
world and finds 1t hopelessly vulgar, but
that man is a snob. The gentleman walks
his way through the world, anticipa ting
just dealing. believing in his neighbOr ex-
pectng responsiveness to honor consider
ateness. highmndedness, and he is often
deceived and finds his confidence misplaced
and sometimes discovers ruffians where he
thought there were gentlemen, but this at
least he has proved-that he himself is
gentleman