in 1877; Boston
followed with a similar organization the next year. These were
followed by the organization of a National Conference of Charities and
Corrections, which holds annual meetings and publishes reports that
are a valuable storehouse of information. Many charitable agencies of
various kinds contribute to the work of relief, some of them really
helpful, others actually blocking the way of genuine progress, but all
showing the strength of the philanthropic motive in American cities.
The closer their alliance with the associated charities the more
effective are their measures of charity. Three stages have marked the
history of the charitable organization societies, as they have learned
from experience. The first has been called the repressive stage. The
fear of pauperizing recipients of charity made the societies too
strict in their alms-giving, so that hardships resulted that were
unnecessary, but such a course was the natural reaction against the
indiscriminate charity that had been in vogue. This stage was
succeeded by the discriminative, in which help is given
discriminatingly, as investigation shows a real need at the same time
that efforts are being put forth to make prolonged giving unnecessary.
Closely combined with this discrimination, which is in constant use,
is the third method of construction. By this constructive method the
worker tries to get at the cause of the particular case of poverty and
to alter the social conditions so that the cause shall no longer act.
Experience and experiment have produced numerous specific measures of
a constructive sort, like the establishment of playgrounds and public
parks, kindergartens and schools for specific purposes, social
settlements and school centres, municipal baths and gymnasiums,
tenement-house reforms and the prevention of disease.

288. =Friendly Visiting.=--The functions of charity organization
societies have been described as the co-ordination and co-operation of
local societies rather than direct relief from the central
organization, thorough investigation of all cases, with temporary
relief where necessary, the establishment of friendly relations
between the poor and the well-to-do, the finding of work for those who
need it, and the accumulation of knowledge on poverty conditions. The
actual contact of charitable societies with the people has been mainly
through friendly visitors who voluntarily engage to call on the needy,
and who meet at regular