Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1916-04-12
FOR SOCIAL WORK.


described by Miss Edith Abbott. CT
Hull House Chicago in a publication
just issued by the Bureau Of Education
Of the Department Of the Interior.
According 70 Miss Abbott there are
now five professional training schools
Tor social workers, the first profess
s:onal school OF philanthropy having
been established at New York in 1905.
The example of New York in founding
the first school for social workers was
quickly followed by Chicago and Bos-
ten. In Chicago the settlements took
the lead in this work. as the Charity
Organization society has done in New
York City. In 1903, Dr. Graham Taylor
CT Chicago Commons, and Miss Julia
G. Lathrop, OF Hull House, in co-opera-
ton with the extension department OF
the University of Chicago, organized
lecture courses in practical work,
which became in the following year the
Chicago Institute of Social Science,
and in 1907 the Chicago School of Civ
les and Philanthropy. In 1904, the
Boston School for Social Workers was
organized under the joint auspices OF
Harvard University and Simmons Col
lege. In St Louis a School of Social
Economy, which originated as a series
Of formidable meetings for local social
workers, was organized in 1905; it
was affiliated at one time with the Uni
yersity of Missouri, and later with
Washington University. Similarly, in
Philadelphia, courses of lectures on
the practical aspects of social work be-
came in 1910 fully organized training
school, which is now called the Penn
Sylyania School for Social Service.
Two events have had much to do
with the successful growth of these
schools, according to Miss Abbott. The
first is the series of grants of money
made by the Russell Sage Foundation
which was organized and endowed for
the improvement of social and living
conditions in the United States" In the
autumn of 1907 the trustees of the Sage
Foundation made what might be called
substantial grants in aid' to the four
professional schools of philanthropy
then organized-those in New oYrk
Chicago, Boston and st. Louis. The
grants to the schools were in the first
instance, specifically given for organ
izing departments of social investiga-
ton, no doubt in the belief that the
work Of investigating and studying ad-
verse social conditions might be in
some measure delegated by the founda-
ton to the schools of philanthropy. |
The Russell Sage Foundation grants"
meant for all the schools the ap |
pointment of additional members of the |
faculty. and through the facilities for
granting Scholarships, fellowships, or
scholarships to promising university
men and women, an improve
ment in the quality of the student
body.
Another fact of Importance in the
recent growth of the schools was the
generous endowment of the New York
School of Philanthropy during the
year 1909-10 by the will of the late
John S. Kennedy, of New York, by
which the school was assured of an |
income from a sum which will ulti. |
mately amount to more than a million |
dollars. The endowment of one of the
professional schools, giving it an as
sured position of permanency and
growth, has been of assistance to all
The other schools in sustaining the
growing public confidence in the i'm.
rortance of their work and the neces-
ity for providing them with the
equipment needed to do that work
well. Whatever has made it possible
Tor any one of the schools to improve
the character of its work has reacted
1avorably upon all the schools by set
ting a new and higher standard to
which the level of work in each schoo,