nglish custom
of relieving extreme need. At first it was possible for local
committees to take care of their poor by doles furnished sparingly in
their homes, and to place the chronic dependents in almshouses. The
former practice is known as outdoor relief, the latter as indoor
relief. Such relief was not administered scientifically, and did not
help to reduce the amount of poverty. The almshouses were the
dumping-ground of a community's undesirables, including idiots and
even insane, cripples and incurables, epileptics, old people, and
orphan children, constituting a social environment that was anything
but helpful to human development. After a time it became necessary for
the State to relieve the local authorities. The defectives and
dependents became too numerous for the local community to take care
of, and enlightened philanthropy was learning better methods. The
result has been the gradual extension of State care and the
segregation of the various classes of incompetents in various State
institutions, including hospitals for the insane, the epileptic, and
the morally deficient, sanitaria for those who suffer from alcoholic
and tuberculous diseases, and schools for the proper training of the
youth who have come under public oversight.

287. =Voluntary Charity.=--Public relief has been supplemented
extensively by voluntary charity. This has become increasingly
scientific. Indeed popular ideas have been largely transformed during
the last generation. In the small towns and villages where there was
little destitution, and where all knew one another's needs, there was
no special need of scientific investigation or charitable
organization, but in the large cities it became necessary. Thomas
Chalmers in Scotland and Edward Denison and Octavia Hill in England
demonstrated the conditions and the advantages of organized effort.
The first charity organization society was organized in 1869 in
London. Its fundamental principle was to help the poor to help
themselves rather than to give them alms. Its aim was to federate all
the charitable efforts of London, and while this has not proved
practicable, it has greatly increased efficiency and has helped to
bind together philanthropic effort all over England. The income of the
various charitable agencies of London alone was reported to be
$43,000,000 in 1906.

In the United States the first organization on the English model was
the charity organization society of Buffalo, founded