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Social Service THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 474
so as to meet multiform distress in many lands and races demanded obviously great organizing power. When General Booth issued his scheme of social reform In Darkest England (London, 1890), the Army had already officers and others engaged wholly in the work to the number of 4,506 in the United Kingdom and 4,910 in the United States and the rest of the world, and it possessed Shelters, Rescue Homes, a Prison Gate Mission, and other institutions. The Church Army is a somewhat similar organization founded in 1882 by the Rev. Wilson Carlile (q.v.), a Church of England clergyman, rector of St. Mary-at-Hill in London.
As stated above, the monastic system came to an end in Scotland about twenty years after its overthrow in England. In John Knox's work on ecclesiastical government, entitled The Book of Discipline, it is recommended that the revenues
io. Move- of the old Church should be applied meats in among other things to the maintenance Scotland. of education in the parish and burgh schools, and to the relief of the aged and infirm poor. The able-bodied poor were, ac cording to his scheme, to be compelled to work. In 1562, the General Assembly of the Kirk peti tioned for provision to be made for the poor. Prac tical effect, however, was not given to Knox's recommendations respecting education until an Act, passed in 1696, stipulated for the maintenance of a school in every parish at the cost of the heritors, or landowners. Nearly three centuries after Knox, another great divine of the Scottish Presbyterian church led the van in the reform of poor-relief, which took place in Scotland as in England, though not upon identical lines, in the first half of last century. This was Thomas Chalmers (q.v.), a man of wide interests who had added to his professional training in theology the study of natural science and of political economy. Placed in charge suc cessively of the large parishes of Tron and St. John in the city of Glasgow, then rapidly growing into the commercial capital of Scotland, he organized, with the help of a number of zealous lay coadjutors, the administration of relief to the poor of the parish on such lines that, while the total expendi ture was reduced. from $8,000 to $1,400, "this result," according to Professor Blaikie, one of his biographers, " was accompanied not by a diminu tion but an increase of comfort and morality. Drunkenness decreased, and parents took an in creased interest in the welfare of their children." The influence of Chalmers' experience and teaching in this department of philanthropy was wide-spread, and its fruits may still be seen in the extensive ramifications of the charity organization system on both sides of the Atlantic and of the Pacific.The movement in favor of Total Abstinence (q.v.) found in Ireland one of its earliest champions. This was Theobald Mathew (q.v.), a Fran-
ce. Total ciscan friar in Cork. Visiting much
with his fellow countrymen. Judges on assize commented on the diminution in crime. The exchequer officials had to comment upon the diminution in revenue, for the receipts from the excise on spirits fell by one-third. Unfortunately the famine diverted his energies to raising funds for the sufferers. He visited New York and Washington, and prosecuted his campaign there between 1849 and 1851.
Enjoying ample land-room with general prosperity, the over-seas self-governing countries'of the empire have so far escaped the necessity of dis-
covering new solutions for distress in rs. The their midst. Local adaptations of
Colonies. machinery originated in older countries-the societies founded by St. Vincent de Paul (q.v.) from France, the Salvation Army and the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations from England, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union from the United States--appear to have proved adequate hitherto to supplement the governmental activities of a democratic rdgime. A great deal of quiet benevolence and neighborliness is exhibited in the ready adoption of orphans and destitute children into private families.
Within the last forty years the desire for social reform in Great Britain has taken three new shapes, those, namely, of charity organization, of tenement reform, and, through reform of tenements, the reformation of the tenants, and of settlement work. While great public spirit and much genuine human sympathy have been displayed in these movements, and while, in all three, zealous clergymen and other church-members may be found taking a share, they, in common with the earlier hospital movement, have been too little the product of ecclesiastical or definitely religious leadership to come within the scope of the present treatment.
It may be that philanthropy is on the verge of passing into a further stage. From causes which were glanced at in the opening paragraphs, law, state-craft and diplomacy, medicine and literature, as well as education, were once subordinate but almost exclusive domains of the Church. To be
able to read was proof presumptive 13. Pros- that a man was a priest, or at least in
pects. minor orders. The four first pur suits have, of course, long since passed into the hands of the laity, and education is passing now. At the present moment, departments which hitherto have formed the realm of philanthropy are in process of annexation by the State itself. Already school-children are fed, septuagenarians pensioned, and employment bureaus and relief works subsidized at the public cost. Proposals embodying a drastic alteration of the poor law are being ac tively urged. If they are carried out in their entirety the drain on private resources will react first of all on the funds available for purposes of voluntary charity, while at the same time few de partments of benevolence will remain outside the control of the State or of municipalities. The trans ference of power from the classes supplying benefac tors to the classes supplying beneficiaries, already to a great extent effected, is likely to accelerate