Philanthropy and Social Progress Author:Jane Addams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV. PHILANTHROPY —ITS SUCCESS AND FAILURE. By Jaku O. 8. Huntinoton, Order or The Holt Crosi, Westminster, Mi-. From the first founding of the New Engla... more »nd colonies up to the beginning of the present century philanthropy in this country was in its merely rudimentary and inchoate condition. No trace is to be found in the annals of that period of many of our most familiar and successful charities. There were no Fresh Air Funds, no St. Andrew's Coffee- stands, no Day Nurseries, no Newsboys' Lodging Houses. The principal charitable institution was one in the neighborhood of Boston, for the instruction of Indian lads. It was called "Harvard College." Family traditions and the anecdotes related by our grandfathers and grandmothers make us familiar with the social life of those early days. Comforts were few and work was hard; many of the very necessaries of to-day were unknown; but the problems of pauperism and mendicancy had not presented themselves. There were plenty of kindly act done for those under one or anotherform of temporary difficulty or need, but they could hardly be dignified with the name of philanthropy. They were nothing but the friendly deeds of neighbors, done as a matter of course, and regarded as entitling the doer to no special credit here or hereafter; in many cases they were mutual benefactions, and the recipient of the favor this year returned it the next. What poor people there were, — old folks who had come into the community late in life and had no one specially related to them, weak-minded and imbecile persons, chronic invalids, — were provided for at the "poor- house," generally a farm on public land under the care of some good-natured man and his wife who ' looked upon their charges simply as unfortunate human beings, not as scientific cases. But, in...« less