Evening star., 1902-04-29
PAY FOR CHARITY WORK
PLEA OF THOSE ENGAGED IN THE
FIELD.
Need of School for the Equipment of
Those Professionally
Employed.

me training class OF the Friendly Visit
| ors, connected with the Associated Chari-
ties. held meeting yesterday afternoon at
4:lo' at the central office, S11 G street
| northwest. The meeting was well attended.
paper prepared by Miss Kate Claghorn,
on creating a profession for charity work
ers, was read at the session, which was in
| Part, as follows:
From time immemorial the dispensation
or aims has been left largely to special
classes of persons-in the church, in trade
| societies or guilds, or in other social bodies.
| Such service, rendered by persons who give
| large II not the main portion of their
| time to the work, and who are, more
| less, definitely guided by the experience of
| others gained in such work, and handed
down, as DR.. Devine phrases it, sometimes
| IN DOCKS oftener in verbal instruction and
| by force of personal example, may well be
| regarded as, In more or less complete
| sense, professional.
Progress Noted.
All OF these workers are beginning to
| recognize more and more fully this COM
mon basis of their work and the existence
OF certain laws, movements or tendencies
| in the social body, which must be learned
| by careful study and conformed to in the
| practice of charity so that social growth
may De helped and not hindered. And, fur
tnermore, there Is a growing recognition
| OF the fact thai the conditions to be studied
| IN order to know these tendencies and
these laws of social health are multitude
| nous and complex recurring natural intell-
| gence and good training to get some
groundwork fer theory of social service
and personal qualities of a high order, to
| carry these out in practice
with the growing recognition on the part
| or the worker, primarily. and of the pub
| lie, secondarily, of the compexity and i'm
| portance of the questions involved in phi
lanitnropic work has come growing recog-
| milton or the need of training for the work,
| and such training is now being more and
more frequently and fully provided.
| Inc national conference of charities and
| corrections has been held annually for the
| last tWenty-six years, and has afforded
| much valuable help to those taking part in
II. Other conferences in special fields are
held, such as those in prisons, the day nur-
| series, the social settlements, etc, and the
| meetings of some strictly scientific bodies
| like the American Social Science Associa-
| ton, the American Academy and the Amer
| lean Association of Advanced Science give
| more and more attention to questions of
| philanthropy. There are besides the ma
| tional bodies in the fields above mentioned
| many state and local bodies, which give fur
| ther aid in the interchange of experience
| and opinion.
| universities are giving more attention to
the practical side of the social sciences, by
ohering special courses of lectures and fell
| loWshlps: and special periodicals.
| Beyond all Of these agencies however
| the need has been felt and expressed for
| school devoted to. the special task of pre-
pairing charity workers for their profession.
| 1t was thought to be desirable that the
| school should be located in a large CITY
where practical work was plentiful: that
the teachers should be university graduates
who have had adequate training in the So
cal sciences, but who have also had prac-
tical work in charities; and that the school
should be properly endowed
Should Have Adequate Paw.
Good work of any kind is worth an ade-
quate return, both for the self-respect of
the worker and for the good of society as
a whole, which is pauperized by accepting
what 1t does not pay for. And it is society
In general that must see the need of such
adequate return to the charity worker and
must meet it. Self-interest gives the law
yer or physician his reward. The service
they render is sought by individuals who
are glad to give literally in exchange for it.
But however gladly the individual patient
OF the charlty worker would pay for the
service rendered him, it is a condition of
the disease itself for which he is under
treatment that he is unable toapay
1t is always harder to bring to a colIec-
tive body a conviction of benefits received
and obligation to make some return for
them, than to an individual But the COM
munity must begin to recognize that the
practitioner of the new philanthropy is
rendering II substantial service, even
from an economic point of view.
"A point that appeals to me as of practi-
cal Importance is that while there seems
to be more or less general recognition of
the claim of administrative and executive
heads of charitable enterprises to a living
wage, there is little thought as yet of the
claim Of the rank-and-file worker If the
executive head needs all the qualifications
that the most thorough training added to
the requisite natural qualfica tions, can give
the district agent needs them all, and more
too, as he has to meet the social problem
in the flesh, and adapt his theories to the
special case before him.
Difficulties in the Way.
81 aware of the practical difficulties
| involved in remedying this state of things
| Public opinion has to be educated by slow
| degrees and it is distinct step in advance
that charity workers are paid at all At
| present there are many who look upon the
| paid charity worker who acts as inter-
mediary between them and the objects of
| their benefactions as a species of toll
| gatherer, keeping for himself, in the form
| of salary, large share of what passes
| through his hands, and decreasing by Just
! so much the share of THE poor.
| THE charity worker has to make his
| place good little by little, getting all the
training he can, then in turn transferring
| this as far as he can. into valuable social
| work that will make the community recog-
| niZe the advantages of training; then the
expense involved in it, then the necessity of
| adequate reward to induce persons capable
| of good social service to train themselves
| for it and continue in it,