erence, unaccompanied by personal knowledge of all the
circumstances, often does more harm than good, and becomes a temptation
rather than a help. We must interfere when confronted by human
suffering and need. Why not interfere effectively? Why not do our
best to remove the causes of need?

Many earnest workers in charity feel that social conditions could be
wonderfully improved if, to every family in distress, could {13} be
sent a volunteer visitor, who would seek out and, with patience and
sympathy, strive to remove the causes of need. Such a visitor must
have the courage and self-control to confine his work to a few
families, for it is impossible to know many well, to understand all
their temptations and difficulties, and so help them effectively. To
supply every needy family with a friend may seem an impossible ideal,
but if all who are undoing each other's work to-day by doing it twice
over, and if all who now waste their time in unnecessary charities,
were seriously to put themselves in training, and confine their work to
the thorough treatment of a few families, the problem of how to help
the poor would be solved.

The introduction to such work might come in many ways. It might come
through our natural relations as employers or neighbors or church
members, or it might come through the district office of a charity
organization society, for these societies usually make a specialty of
training volunteers and of establishing friendly relations between
volunteer {14} visitors and needy families. But come as it may, an
introduction can be made for us, and we need not enter the poor man's
home as an intruder.

Much has been written about the qualifications necessary for charitable
work. It is possible to exaggerate them. Those who are unfamiliar
with the homes of the poor are likely to think it unsafe to send young
and inexperienced people into poor neighborhoods. As a matter of fact,
there are many good people in the poorest neighborhoods, and young
workers are as safe there as anywhere. In an old note-book I find that
years ago I set down the necessary qualifications of the friendly
visitor to be tact and good-will. If we consider that tact includes
knowledge, either instinctive or acquired, this may still stand. We
cannot be tactful with those whose point of view we fail to understand,
or do not even strive to understand. The best helps toward such an
understanding, and the best training for charitab