rather than employers, who wilfully of hospitals and other reliefs for the violate the law. ** * The recent debate in the House of Commons on a government bill for the housing of the working classes revealed a very bad state of affairs, notwithstanding all that has been done. The London County Council has rehoused 8,928 persons, displacing 16,615, but meantime. London rents have doubled, with a fearful strain upon workingman's means. victims of overcrowding is said to be $650,000 a year.-Philadelphia Medical Journal. HENRY ARDEN, JAPANESE ART OBJECTS, NOVELTIES IN SILKS FOR LADIES' USE, SILK CREPES AND GRASS LINENS, PILLOW COVERS, ETC., 38 WEST 22D STREET. Statistics showed 900,000 Nazareth Steam Laundry, persons living in an illegally crowded condition. In Camberwell seventeen persons were found living and sleeping in one room. In the East End beds were let out to three sets of Occupants daily, for eight hours each. The Public Health Act forbids this; but it was said, "Of what use is it to eject from houses those whose only other sleeping-place is the Thames embankment under the open sky." The death rate from contagious diseases has gone up in the last thirty years from 101 and 160 to 270 to the 1,000. The bill authorized a County Council to provide houses outside of its own district-it being found impossible to rehouse in London, so long as slum property has to be bought up on the greedy owner's terms. Meanwhile the expense to the taxpayers GOOD COUNSEL FARM, WHITE PLAINS, N. Y. Telephones, 86B and 124 White Plains. This Laundry is equipped with the best and latest machinery. It also offers the advantage of country bleaching. No acids are used. Work is collected and returned in New York and Westchester County by the American Express, without expense to customers. Special rates to Hotels and Families. IN CHARGE OF THE SISTERS WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT, 327 BROADWAY, NEW YORK The Official Organ of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York. PROGRAM OF THE SUMMER SCHOOL IN PHILANTHROPIC WORK. 1Ο Last week of the course, July 23-28; Mr. Edward T. Devine in charge. MONDAY, JULY 23. 9 A. M.-The Purpose and Scope of Settlements; How far are their objects attained; Mr. James B. Reynolds, Head Worker University Settlement. Visits to Vacation Schools and Playgrounds. 8 P. M.-Social meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Gordon; East-Side House, Foot East Seventy-sixth street. Topic: "The Social Basis and Bond of Settlement Work.' TUESDAY, JULY 24. 9 A. M.-Vacation Schools; Mr. Clarence E. Meleney, Assistant Superintendent Department of Education New York city. Visits to some of the improved tenements. WEDNESDAY, JULY 25. 9 A. M.-Housing as a Municipal Movement; Dr. E. R. L. Gould, President City and Suburban Homes Co. Visit to Sea Breeze, Coney Island, the Fresh-Air Home of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. THURSDAY, JULY 26. 9 A. M.-Movement for Small Parks and Playgrounds. 8 P. M-The Development of the Tenement; Lawrence Veiller, Secretary Tenement-House Commission. Illustrated by stereopticon. 8.30 A. M.-Summary for the week. SATURDAY, JULY 28. Reports by students and final visits to institutions. The class will meet each day at 8.30 A. M. for discussion of the lecture and visits of the preceding day. THE ATTITUDE OF NON-SECTARIAN AGENCIES BY EDWARD T. DEVINE, The chief of all non-sectarian organizations is the state. Of the agencies employed by the state the most important for purposes of present comparison would be the public schools or the public system for the relief of the poor. The public school under our system is not an agency which is expected to accomplish the entire educational process. That task it shares with the family and the church, neither of which are governmental agencies, and with what we sometimes call practical life, or in the cities by a grim figure of speech-the streetwhich is not an institution at all, or if it is, not one that has been, as a scientist might say, isolated and described. The school is, however, the definite contribution-and it is a very large one-made by the state to the education of its future citizens. Religion we have kept apart from the state. We are not, therefore, to rely upon the school for religious instruction or for the encouragement of distinctly religious practices. If religion be only the expression of the relation between. the individual and the universe, then the school also concerns itself in many ways with religion, but in the narrower sense in which it means the inculcation of particular doctrines, instruction in particular forms of worship, reception into a particular body of believers, intimate association with those of a particular household of faith, it is beyond the legitimate scope of the public school. The right action may be taught, but it will be done without emphasis upon the religious sanction for it. The school is intrusted with the duty of mental training, and to some extent with the duty of physical, æsthetic, and moral training. Great bodies of common knowledge are to be passed on from one generation to the next, national ideals and conceptions are to be kept alive, workers are to be fitted to play their part in the economic and social order, and for these tasks the school is pre-eminently fitted. the liberty of our diverse religious faiths is not to be infringed, and the solemn responsibility of religious instruction is to be left unimpaired upon the family or upon the religious organizations to which the family has in part intrusted it. Thus there is a division of work, adopted at first unconsciously and gradually, then deliberately and But positively, as the best means of getting both parts of the work done. It is not the only conceiv able plan. There are comparatively few countries in which it is found. It is not beyond criticism, but it is with us established beyond successful attack, and it will serve as the best analogy for the special secular agencies which are in question. The point then which I wish most to emphasize is that the heartiest friend of the Sunday school, the most earnest advocate of the necessity for careful religious teaching of the young at home, the most generous defender of one's religious faith whatever it may be, is almost surc to be the teacher, or the parent who is in close touch with the school and knows just what is done in the school-room. There the complexities and the difficulties of the educational process are fully revealed, and the need for co-operation among all the agencies which act for good upon the growing mind is established. Passing directly from the school to the private agencies which have to do with the poor in their homes, we find that there are similar reasons for a division of work. The attitude towards religion of the worker in a relief society, or a charity organization society, or any other secular agency which deals with the poor of many faiths, is to appreciate its necessity and to leave it strictly alone. The charity worker in not indifferent to the value of spiritual influence in the reconstructive work which he has undertaken. He sim ply consents to a division of work under which the giving of religious instruction and counsel devolves upon others, as the giving of employment also usually will and, as, in the case of the charity organization worker at least, the giving of material relief may also be relinquished to others. How could we be indifferent to the value of religion? Whether we re interpret it as the gradual unfolding of religious conceptions which finds not its culmination but its most conspicuous landmark-in the ceremonial confirmation of the liturgical churches, or as a force which in maturity converts the individual, as evangelical churches more dismore distinctly teach-leading sinners earnestly to desire to repent of their sins and to flee from the wrath to come-whichever its method ligion is a constructive and reconstructive force in our human lives. Dr. Pullman is right in refusing to regard the church as solely or chiefly for the poor, but our work is not among the poor as such. It is among the unfortunate, the unsuccessful, the destitute, the social debtors. The problem is to start their social ledgers anew, to make them independent, successful, fortunate. If, when it is character that is abnormal, religion has power to induce conversion, to change the desires of men and create in them a new heart; if religion has power to confirm them, after education and faithful counsel, in a new manner of life, then by all means let an appeal be made to religion. But let it be made under conditions which give religion a fair chance. Let neither the almoner nor the investigator as such hope to play successfully the rôle of religious counsellor. I admit that there may be emergent cases in which the obvious necessity of saying a word in season may surmount all general rules, as a similar emergency may justify relief where it would not otherwise be given. But to be effective the call to repentance, the helpful counsel, the stern rebuke should come from one who stands in a different relation from that of the charity visitor. It should come from parent, or pastor, or friend; or if it come from a stranger, then in such a way that there is no suspicion of ulterior motive. The character of adviser on religious matters is not absolutely incompatible with that of agent or visitor of a charitable society, but in practice they do not work harmoniously together. The more clearly the charity worker realizes the need for religious work and the greater his appreciation of the value and fruitfulness of that work, the more ready will he be to leave it for those who are qualified to perform it, and who are free from the handicap under which he would labor. Two special conditions of successful religious influence must be borne in mind by the secular visitor. The religious appeal is made directly to the judgment and the conscience, it is true, but it takes for granted a host of associations, emotions, and instincts, which none understand except those who share them. I |