pass by, Sir Launfal, having spent his life in a fruitless search, returns to his castle only to be denied admission. Once more the leper stands before him and asks for alms, but this time Sir Launfal's heart goes out to the leper in his sufferings, and he divides with him his crust and brings him water from the brook. The first attitude of Sir Launfal has been too often the attitude of the almsgiving rich in the past; his last action shows the true spirit of the social worker. Nothing is more fatal to the success of the work than the spirit of condescension that the rich too often show toward the poor.

LIFE OF A RESIDENT.

Very mistaken ideas are often entertainad by outsiders as to what the life of a resident is. There is so much said about sharing the life of the poor, living the life of the people, etc., that many seem to think that to live in a settlement means to live on a very frugal fare and in mean and unattractive apartments, but this is one of the things which settlements do not stand for. The aim is to plant a higher life among the poor, hence the building itself and the rooms of the residents are generally commodious and models of taste. They are very much better than the ordinary room of the college student. The board is usually very good and the people of the neighborhood do not dine with the residents, as many seem to think, except when they are invited to do so. However, the effect of the quarter can not be avoided and it is not best that it should be. There are the noises, the unpleasant odors, the dirt of the district, and the constant presence of sights of wretchedness which wear upon the nerves and sympathies. There are the endless rows of pushcarts and brick buildings and dirty streets, and usually there is no touch of nature to redeem the barrenness and monotony. The resident's time is never his own, as he is constantly being visited by people of the neighborhood and by guests of the settlement who wish to see the work and the life. These things can not well be otherwise, because it is through the intimate contact with his neighbors and by entertaining them in his own room or the club room that the worker is to gain his influence. There is usually a very ideal social life among the workers who live thus separated from their former associates in a city slum. The common work and isolation alike draw them together. Then there are many interesting people who are constantly coming to visit the settlement. It is always a favorite place of resort for sociologists and philanthropists.

The workers at a settlement consist of a head worker, one or more assistants, a matron, resident volunteers, volunteers who come in from outside to assist in taking charge of the clubs and the library, the teachers of classes, etc. The head worker of most settlements devotes all of his or her time to the work, and is generally paid, as are also the assistants. Of the other residents some devote all of their time to the work, but many only devote their evenings or a part of their evenings to it. They receive no compensation and usually pay six or seven dollars a week for their board. They might be called social apprentices, though many are thus giving their lives to the work. Miss Addams thinks that social work of this kind, either as a volunteer or as a resident, is an invaluable part of the education of a young woman of competence who has graduated from college and finds herself without any serious work in life. The widening of her sympathies through contact with the people is sure to make her more attractive and useful in any circle, while at the same time she is giving to the poor the results of her years of training and of a life of rich opportunities.

When a settlement is planted in a slum there is always a struggle for the mastery to determine which is to leaven the other. There is the same struggle between the individual residents of the settlement to determine whether they are to bring

ED 1903-3

the people up to their standard or whether they shall adopt the ways of thinking of the neighborhood. There is an inevitable leveling up and down where the contact is intimate which works both ways, and it is therefore desirable that the residents should lead a life of wide interests and sympathies without as well as within the settlement.

ACTIVITIES OF SETTLEMENTS.

considerable part of the energy of the New York settlements during the past year has been given to the investigation of child labor in that city and securing the passage of a more stringent law against the employment of children of school age, and in saving the new tenement-house law, which promises to the New York of the future such greatly improved dwellings for the poor.

The Legal Aid Society.-One of the useful activities connected with most settlements is the legal aid. The people in settlement neighborhoods in this country are apt to be immigrants who have only been here a short time. Consequently, they do not understand either our language or our laws, and are peculiarly liable to be cheated by employers and business concerns. To such the Legal Aid Society offers free advice, and, if circumstances seem to warrant it, will even prosecute for its client. A small fee is charged if it appears that the client can afford to pay it.

The Provident Loan Society.—The Provident Loan Society is another society connected with some of the settlements. This is a model pawn shop. The regular pawn shops of these neighborhoods usually charge 3 or 4 per cent a month on the money loaned. If the borrower does not redeem his pledge promptly the article is often sold at a great sacrifice to him. The Provident Loan charges 1 per cent a month on all its small loans on short time. Thus far it has proved both a practical philanthrophy and also a good business investment, paying about 5 per cent on the capital invested. The Provident Loan of the University Settlement in New York does over $2,000,000 worth of business a year. As the work is among the Jews, the pledges are largely diamonds.

The penny provident bank.—The penny provident bank is a feature of all settlements, so far as the writer knows. The curse of the poor is their improvidence. They seldom have any plan which surveys the income and arranges expenditures so as to leave a margin. Consequently, when times are good they live well and often spend much on trifles, but in case of sickness or loss of work there are no savings to draw from and suffering is almost immediate. The English settlements often send around a collector to the houses and urge the people to put in a penny a week if they can do no better. In America the settlements have bank day two or three afternoons or evenings a week. The deposits are nearly all made by children and range from one cent to three or four dollars. The usual deposit is about five or ten cents. When the amount reaches $5 the child is advised to put his money in a savings bank, as the penny provident bank does not pay interest on deposits. The banking system is very simple. The child takes out a bank book, he puts in 10 cents and has a 10-cent stamp pasted in his book. The bank will redeem the book at any time for the value of its stamps, that is, penny provident stamps.

The kindergarten.-Kindergartens are a regular feature of settlement work. They differ from school kindergartens in that a small fee is generally charged (usually 5 cents a week). The kindergartners visit the children and parents in their homes and organize mothers meetings. They receive salaries for their services.

The crèche. Most of the newer settlements have day nurseries connected with them. Many of the mothers of the neighborhood work out during the day, and

either they must take the baby with them, leave it with a neighbor, or keep one of the older children home from school to take care of it. None of these alternatives is pleasing, and the settlements have done a service to the poor by providing a place where the baby can be left and cared for during the day. The mother leaves the baby at the crèche when she goes to work in the morning and calls for it at night. A fee of 5 cents is usually charged.

The trained nurse.--The trained nurse is one of the latest additions to the staff of settlement residents. Most settlements now have one. She attends the needy sick of the neighborhood, and naturally gains a very strong hold on the people. Lectures, classes, etc.-Hull House, Chicago, is a center for university extension lectures of the University of Chicago. Many of the New York settlements are regular lecture centers under the board of education.

Settlements usually have classes in music, dancing, cooking, and gymnastics, and sometimes carpentry. The teachers are usually paid. Many of these classes are organized as clubs and meet perhaps once or twice a week as a club and once a week as a class.

Art.-There is a general feeling that settlements should do something to relieve the barrenness of the lives of the poor and bring as many elements of beauty into the neighborhood as possible. For this reason they sometimes have a programme of concerts. Often there are art exhibitions and flower shows during the year. Libraries.-Settlement libraries are extensively used by the children of the neighborhood. The library of the university settlement in New York had the largest circulation per book of any library in the State last year.

Probation work.-Another resident who has been recently added to the list of workers is the probation officer. It has been felt for years that our penal system, whereby a first offender was sent to jail with hardened criminals who taught him the ways of crime, had its faults, The young man who came back from the prison had the brand of the jail upon him and found it hard either to secure honest employment afterwards or to live down the obloquy of his former life. The probation work comes in as a relief from this condition of things. When a young man or woman is brought into court charged with his first or second offense, the judge gives the case to a probation officer to investigate. If the officer thinks on investigation that mercy should be shown, he advises the judge to this effect, and the offender is often put under control of the probation officer. This means that the delinquent must give an account of himself and his work every week to the satisfaction of the officer. Almost 60 per cent of those thus committed are redeemed from the criminal class. The probation officer is supposed to take a personal interest in these probationers to a decent life-to advise with them, to help them to secure work, or even give them financial aid in some cases. He may send the probationer to jail without a warrant if he is not satisfied with his efforts to improve.

Club work.-A large part of the work in a settlement building consists in club work. A club is a self-governing body, voluntarily organized for personal ends. It has a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, cominittees, etc., and generally a club adviser, who is a settlement resident or volunteer worker who meets with the club and seeks to influence its members for good.

In the New York settlements there is much greater demand for club rooms than there are rooms to offer. The university settlement has had to turn away about two hundred clubs during the past year. The reason for this great demand lies in the absence of sitting rooms or parlors from the neighboring tenements, so that the young people must find some other place for sociability.

There are many different kinds of clubs and many of them meet on certain nights or in the afternoon as classes. There are social clubs, debating clubs,

literary clubs, industrial clubs, etc. When a club is organized the first meeting is usually taken up by the election of officers and the choosing of a name. In former years the adoption of a constitution was the next weighty matter, but now that clubs have so multiplied, this matter is greatly simplified by the new clubs borrowing the constitution of an old club and adopting it with a few modifications. The membership is made up in much the same way as it is in a gentleman's club; a group of friends organize the club and the membership is increased by bringing in other friends. In boys' clubs there is generally a minimum and maximum age limit of members. The first idea was to have large clubs of a hundred or more, but now the idea is rather to have clubs of twelve or fifteen. A boy will generally be more loyal to a small club and there will be more intimacy between the members and a greater opportunity for the director to understand and influence each member personally.

There are two varieties of club activity, the business meeting and the programme of work, whatever it may be. The business meeting is apt to occupy too much time and becomes disorderly in the case of clubs of boys or girls under 16. It also presents many valuable sociable opportunities for the club adviser. If he is well versed in parliamentary law and gets his club to observe due form in its proceedings, this adds greatly to a club's self respect. If he can instill into the club the purpose to live up to its own constitution and by-laws he is teaching both regard for the club and obedience to law. The business meeting is well adapted to teaching several of the elements of success in modern life and also good citizenship. It teaches the boys or girls to cooperate in securing common ends. It teaches loyalty to a voluntary organization and obedience and respect to a selfenacted law.

The discipline of a boys' or girls' club is a problem at first. There are three ways of securing such a degree of orderliness as is necessary to preserve the club's self-respect and will enable it to secure its objects. Discipline must be lenient if the children are to seem natural. The first and best method is to get the members of the club so much interested in it and what it is trying to do that they will restrain themselves, and to give them such a high ideal of club life and so much self-respect as a club that disorder will seem unnatural. The second way of maintaining order is through the club president, who by his manner, by imposing fines, or sending members from the room will alone often keep a club well disciplined. Clubs usually have a sergeant-at-arms, who is at the command of the president. The third way of maintaining order is by the presence of the club adviser and the respect he inspires.

Most of the organizations of the past, such as the priesthoods of Greece and Rome, and later, the Odd Fellows and the Masons in our own country, have developed a long ritual in connection with initiation and the conduct of business. There were also certain secrets not to be revealed. Boys show this same tendency strongly and sometimes organize into a gang to keep a secret they have made up themselves. A ritual of initiation, with secret grip, password, etc., adds greatly to the interest and impressiveness of this work for boys. As to whether it is best the writer leaves each to decide for himself.

The club adviser or director has a difficult position to fill. He must direct without commanding and lead while he seems to follow. If he attempts to force his ideals on the club they will lose interest. The great thing which he must do for the club is to select some worthy aim for its activity, and then by his own efforts and by cooperation with them keep up a constant enthusiasm for the work. A club must have some object if it is to be worthy of existence. If the adviser is to be successful socially he must have an intimate acquaintance with every boy and learn all about his life, so that he can advise and sympathize with him on all the

affairs of life, as a cultured parent would do were the boy so fortunate as to possess one. In Boston they are coming to think that an industrial club is more successful than any other.

The main object of those who began the club movement was to remove the boys and girls from the temptations of the street, and especially of the saloon.

A second good object is the forming of intimate friendships and gaining the ability to cooperate.

A third is a training in manners and cleanliness through the influence of the director and of the club as a whole. Clubs train boys to be gentlemen. In this way the work has been very successful.

A fourth good object may be a training in morals through talks by the leader and the penalties inflicted on offenders by the club itself.

A fifth object in any well-regulated club is a training in good citizenship through the development of a sense of loyalty to an organization and its members and through obedience to self-elected leaders and self-enacted laws.

Vacation homes and summer camps.-During the summer a large part of the regular activities of settlements are discontinued and the club members and children are sent to some camp in the country for one or two weeks. They usually pay about half their expenses. The plan adopted by most of the New York settlements has been to secure an abandoned farm with a good farmhouse. A matron is placed in charge and there is some worker to organize games.

PERMANENCE OF SETTLEMENTS.

One sometimes hears the questions asked, "Is the settlement a permanent institution?" "Is it to be a feature of our social life in the years to come?" The answer seems to be that the settlement, as a settlement, is a phase of the "battle with the slum." To those of us who are sanguine enough to believe the slum is going to be conquered in its struggle with civilization, it would appear that the settlement as a place of residence for another class must disappear with the slum, but it may be maintained as a neighborhood center. To us, however, the fight with the slum is peculiarly difficult, for however well we subdue the evil conditions in our midst, each steamer that comes to us from southern Europe brings us a new slum, and we have to begin the battle over again. The slum must be conquered there before we can escape from its influence here.

There are many who believe that our present slum condition is due to the separation of the rich and poor, who have come to live in different sections of the city. This has brought about a failure to understand each other and an almost complete breach of sympathy between the classes. These theorists believe the solution of the whole problem is to bring the rich to live among the poor, and the able will thus become popular leaders, and labor and capital will understand each other, and their cooperation will lead to kindlier feelings and the wiping out of slum conditions.

RESULTS.

When we consider the efforts which the more fortunate classes are making for those less fortunate, when we regard the vast sums of money which are being contributed by the rich to raise the condition of the poor, when we see the manifold activities now being carried on to relieve their wretchedness or give them real pleasure, we can not but ask ourselves, Can the laboring people who see all this ever again regard society as their enemy? If an era of better understanding and better feeling between rich and poor is really approaching, as the writer believes is the case, the settlements have had no small part in reestablishing this harmony.