7. CHARITY AND REFORMS.

Dispensaries, dental service, surgical helps, and all methods above mentioned.

Members of all classes should be encouraged to coöperate as neighbors to prevent pauperism.

Civic efforts of all kinds should engage the united interest of young and old.

8. RELIGION.

Household worship (neighbors invited).
Public worship.

Sacred concerts.

Encouragement to neighboring churches.

A. The Ministry of the Settlement to the Health of the people.

How vast and beneficent the victories of science! To multitudes how useless! Bacteriology in the hands of the great Pasteur, antisepsis and anæsthesia from Simpson and Lister, the wonderful arts of dentists and surgeons, the prophylactic methods of sanitarians, these are quickly taken up in palaces and mansions. Tardily if ever they reach the suffering poor. The average rate of sickness and mortality among the poor is very great. Poverty is literally a matter of life and death. In Aberdeen, Scotland, of whose population only 13.06 per cent live in one room, the death-rate is lowest of eight great Scotch towns. The death-rate rises as the size of the home grows smaller. In Glasgow, where the death-rate is highest, 24.7 per cent of its population live in one room. Those who live in one or two rooms show a death-rate of 27.74 per thousand, while those who enjoy five rooms furnish

only 11.23 per thousand. In the rich quarters of Paris the death-rate was 13.4 per thousand, while in the poor districts it was 31.3 per thousand. Crowding is not the only physical evil in the houses of the poor. Cleanliness and ventilation can with difficulty be provided and they come to be neglected from despair. People become accustomed to feebleness and weariness. It seems natural to be ex

hausted. If the babies die there is savage comfort in the reflection that the survivors may have more to eat. If infants are insured the indemnity becomes the chief consolation at the funeral. Such outward conditions pervert bodily appetites and aggravate vicious propensities. There are few facilities for bathing in the houses of the poor. The sweat of the laboring man clogs his skin and unduly heavy work is laid upon lungs and kidneys. Pulmonary diseases shadow the poor man's home. The rich wards dump their nasty garbage in open lots before the doors of the poor. The products of decay breed flies and pestilence among the silent wage earners. They are too weary to go to the city hall to complain, and if they did go who would hear them? Many of them are foreigners, unacquainted with the dark and peculiar ways of our city officials. They come to think that law is merely a device of the capitalists to repress strikes and help "scabs." Government to them is the god of landlords. They fear to provoke the wrath of the house-owner lest he prove his vengeance by ejecting them the first hour rent is over-due. The local boss is too busy seeking "boodle" to attend to

such trifles as sanitation. At the best he is too ignorant to appreciate the arguments of bacteriologists. He seldom studies the statistics of the Board of Health, and even the members of that august body may be tools of aldermen.

The

HOW THE SETTLEMENT PROMOTES HEALTH. The residents, just because they live on the ground and suffer directly from vicious conditions, become interested in the lot of the neighbors. You cannot photograph a smell or transmit a headache by telephone, but if you live in a poor district you need no rumors and witnesses to convince you. huge volumes of black smoke roll from tall chimneys into the windows of the Settlement and cover books and curtains with soot and begrime faces, necks and hands. Nausea and fever warn them of the causes of sickness and death and give them the right of self-defense.

Therefore they naturally make common cause with their neighbors. They may begin by a personal appeal to the health officers, or to the alderman. Occasionally this is fairly successful. But so long as the people have insanitary habits and customs the public authorities can accomplish little. The citizens must be aroused, and to be aroused must be taught. Ignorance is the first enemy to fight. The people can get anything they want if they will unite and ask for it persistently. Back yards, drains, alleys, walks, street cars cannot be clean and wholesome without reformation of habits. Therefore with infinite tact and patience the residents must teach the principles of hygiene and

sanitation. The magic lantern must reveal the minute organisms which produce fermentation, decay and disease. Tracts, books, talks, visits must show the way to health and strength.

F. W. Robertson points out the spiritual significance of these efforts to promote health. "It must be an era marking a changed state of things, when princes and nobles, instead of occupying their time with battles and tournaments, are occupied with such subjects as improving the dwellings of the poor, and the construction of baths and washhouses. This, I think, must prove that we have arrived at a state of things in which the smallest, the minutest atoms of the species become of importance; when members of the government are absolutely not ashamed to give lectures, and to enlighten the people on the necessity of drainage and sanitary regulations-surely this is significant. And in all this we have, I think, the very genius and spirit of Christianity; we have that which, eighteen hundred years ago, was declared when the apostle told us: Nay, more, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary; and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor."

The Settlement is a station for investigation of actual conditions and already has proved useful in this field. Of course, the rights of the poor must be respected; prying curiosity must be forbidden; respectful treatment must be given to all. But honest and kind efforts to get at the real causes of

misery are not resented, and they are the first condition of remedy. Until the public knows the conditions fully and accurately nothing will be attempted.

The bulletins and reports of several Settlements and popular magazines have presented the results of important studies. The Hartford Settlement in coöperation with "The Committee of Fifty," made a local study of the liquor traffic, drinking habits and customs, and their effects on the people. Residents of Kingsley House (Miss Meloy and Miss Shapleigh) have given attention to foods and dietaries. Miss Chester, of the Log Cabin Settlement, measured 150 mountain children that their physical condition might be compared with that of city children. Tenement houses have been studied by nearly all the Settlements, and large results were published in the Hull House Papers, the Forum and elsewhere. "The Analysis of a Tenement Street,” shows with graphic power and photographic fidelity the impressions of a resident.

Investigation leads to agitation. The people are taught to realize their perils and wrongs. Memorials and petitions, newspaper discussions, assemblies, mass meetings, protests, injunctions and legal processes follow the disclosures of residents. A community which has once risen to defend itself does not forget the lesson and is afterward vigilant.

Demonstration of what is possible is sometimes necessary to convince the officials. Spoilsmen are obtuse, inclined to regard philanthropists as visionary and impracticable. But when a Head Worker