think much of a great railroad which would be content to endanger the lives of all its passengers by using a depot together with a miserably managed road.. Not peace, but a sword, has been and must be, at times, the means to a high end. Our name, especially "Associated Charities," which most of us happily have taken, expresses not an end, but a means. Knowing the end before us, let each society, in this regard, take the best means for reaching it.

Some of you may not agree with me that personal service and the education of public opinion are the most important methods in our work. If so, it is because you believe that the Charity Organization movement can succeed along the line of least resistance. I believe that it can succeed only along the line of most resistance, where the hardest work lies. I do not wish to come to our feast to-night to point to mystic words upon the wall; but I solemnly believe that the Charity Organization societies must work harder to do away with the causes of poverty and pauperism, or they will be weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Let us to-night resolve so to work as not to be found wanting. Much of the failure and discouragement that we know comes from the very loftiness of our object, and the high character of the only methods by which it can be reached. We must strive harder to keep that end in view, to guide our way by those methods. We must have not less co-operation, but more of it of a broader nature, not so much on paper as with persons working for positive results; not less giving of money, but more giving of time and energy and intelligence; not so much apathy to harm, but the willingness to fight against harm; not misconception of the word "charity," but the effort to bring it back to its God-given meaning. Following these guides, we may safely press on. Then, if men sneer at our work as "scientific" charity or call it new charity, we may answer that charity bears no qualification, and began when man first turned to raise up his fellow-man. The socialists and the impatient of every kind, talking of cross-cut paths to the millennium, may call us slow and trivial; but we shall go on, believing that we are in the right way a long, tedious way, perhaps, but the sure way to lessening poverty and pauperism.

CONTINUED CARE OF FAMILIES.

BY FRANCES A. SMITH.

In the United States, Associated Charities work has passed from infancy into childhood. In earlier days we groped doubtfully for ways and means; but now we are beginning to work intelligently, and to form good habits in our methods.

Associated Charities cases can all be classified under three heads, cases of degradation, of destitution, and of conditions requiring special work for children.

Under the first must be considered as causes: (1) laziness; (2) alcoholic intemperance; (3) lying, defrauding, beggary, shiftlessness, a too low standard of life, lack of economy, family squabbles, inefficiency; (4) cruelty to or neglect of children or relatives; (5) gambling, stealing, defrauding, vagrancy, illegal liquor-selling, cruelty to animals.

The causes of destitution are: (1) lack of work; (2) sickness or physical defects; (3) lack of wage-earners in the family, or poorly paid employment; (4) over-expenditure; (5) degradation.

In special work with children our first attention is given to see that they grow up under the best conditions possible,- moral, intellectual, social, industrial, physical,— and that they enter occupations where there is a chance of making a respectable livelihood for themselves and for their families in the future.

When we see adverse conditions in almost every family under our care appearing again and again, year after year, like the weeds in our garden, we must keep at work continually, season after season, pulling up the weeds of degradation and destitution, cultivating the thrift, self-dependence, industry, virtue, health, as well as the intellectual and social natures of our poor friends. If we hope for success in these human gardens, we must have such love, enthusiasm, energy, thoroughness, courage, as Celia Thaxter showed in her island garden. As she studied the habits of each plant in order to give it the essential elements for growth, so we carefully and patiently try to develop each family within the limitations of its nature. Mrs. Thaxter's book has many lessons for us, and it is pleasant to learn them in the delightful atmosphere of her breezy surroundings.

Thus it is essential for every visitor to start out with the idea that this friendship for the family is to continue. It could also be made helpful by frequent consultations between the visitor and his conference. This could be written out by the committee or its agent for every family needing a visitor, as, for example: "At 5 Clark Street lives James Leonard with his wife Ellen and their four children. You may introduce yourself as having heard that he is out of work. You may perhaps help now to get him employment, and in the future by looking out for the children. We shall be glad to hear from you about this family at the Conference, Charity Building, Wednesday afternoon at three o'clock, at the office, or by letter." Whenever the family has been helped over its period of sharp distress, then comes the time to assist in improving its condition permanently. It has been said that it is impossible to visit a family without making improvement, and it is equally true that it is impossible to visit a family year after year without making permanent improvement. Only by this long acquaintance can the friendly visitor become “the visiting friend." Friendliness is helpful, but friendship is powerful for good. We all know how the confidence of a friend has helped each one of us up into places we should never have reached alone.

A striking example occurred once during a visitor's illness, when we were asked to call on some of her poor people. One of the women we had not seen since she first came to us some four years before. and we remembered her distinctly as quite ordinary then. Imagine our surprise on finding that a certain dignity and earnestness akin to that of the visitor had crept into this woman's life, and found expression in her face and bearing. Such transformations cannot take place in a few weeks or months. They are of slow growth, but they are the best rewards of friendship.

There are visitors who find it difficult to talk with their poor families. One, we remember, thought he could not speak to them of the opera and theatre, and so felt that there was nothing to talk about. Edward Everett Hale's "How to Do It" applies just as well to conversation between the poor and well-to-do as it does to conversation elsewhere. Why not talk, therefore, of the theatre or opera, or of anything which interests us, as the best means of interesting them? If they cannot afford these recreations themselves, they may care all the more to hear them described by others. Often our poor friends

are eager to know all we can tell about ourselves.

If we wish to

secure their confidence, the safest way to make sure of this is to give

them ours.

There are visitors who keep to their own simple and natural ways with their poor as they do with their well-to-do friends. One of these visitors, an artist, took an unruly boy from one of her families to the Art Museum. In the same charming spirit with which she entertains her society friends, she cultivated the artistic imagination in this boy. When he went home, he could not begin again slashing up the furniture with his pocket-knife or beating his younger brother; for on every pine chair and table, as well as on his brother's jacket, arose visions of a soldier's camp-fire at sunset, of a cardinal in his crimson robe of state, of three boats sailing out into the moonlight. He soon became a good boy; but the process of making him clean and neat took two whole years, although it was done finally by continued lessons in connection with situations found for him from time to time. Perhaps we may be pardoned for giving a homely instance to show how the friendship of this same visitor established a healthful habit. A young girl went up to a country house for a vacation, and, on coming home, took the visitor one side, shutting all the doors, and asked, "Do you brush your teeth?" The visitor admitted the fact. "Well," said the girl, "the mother and the girls in the country brushed their teeth. I thought it might be a notion they had; but, if you brush yours, it must be right, and I am going to brush mine." This visitor writes: "It is only by the strength of our sympathies. that we can be of use to the poor. The bond is, however, stronger and more wholesome when one is able to receive sympathy from them, and such small services as they wish to offer. If we can draw out an interest in our own way of life and occupation or experience from people who never read, our answers to their questions make a deep impression. The questions may appear somewhat indiscreet, but they are prompted not so much by curiosity as by the eagerness to understand something of the world outside of their own. Our answers may open a window from a dark room into the summer world of thought and imagination."

After you have been "the visiting friend," it is only one more step to have your poor friends come to visit you. Well do we remember the lady who gave the boys from her poor family a standing invitation to spend any of their leisure time at her house and gar

den. In this cultivated home the intellectual nature of the boys developed. As they grew older, they went to the theatre only to see Shakspere's plays, though they struggled up into the top gallery, like Charles Lamb. When we first knew this family, thirteen years ago, they all ate out of one dish on the floor. Now one of the sons earns $1,700 a year as a designer, and the family owns a house in the suburbs.

Often the relation becomes quite social between visitor and family. At the conference one day a visitor told of a family she had befriended for five long years, where at last there had been considerable improvement in cleanliness, and some members had joined the savings society. Some one asked if the visitor would keep on with the family. "Oh, yes; but I only visit the family socially now," she answered.

We have now seen how the visitors impart their own virtues, how they cultivate the intellect, health, industry, self-dependence, thrift, and the social natures of their poor friends. In these ways and many others the visitor takes up the brotherhood of man, and translates sentiment into living acts and practice.

If we are anxious to keep our poor families from being pauperized, to help them to save, to start them out into new fields of activity and enjoyment, we should keep them under our continued care. Although kind and considerate, we must be firm and constant. Conciliation and tact are essential for success in our work; and these can be cultivated in us and in our unfortunate friends only by a long personal acquaintance and by frequent consultation on things of interest, finally making a compact of friendship and justice most powerful for good.

The more discouraging a family is, the more courage we summon to help them out of their difficulties. Although sometimes it takes a great while to discover them, encouragement and praise of the good points of a family, and their cultivation, bring excellent results.

As soon as the visitor and the family know each other well enough to have a hearty laugh together, even if it be at the expense of the family, it is a great help. A visitor found it difficult to get on confidential terms with one of her families until they happened to be talking about the children's birthdays, when she was surprised to find they all four came on holidays,- Washington's Birthday, 4th