6. =National Philanthropy.=--So much of national life is voluntary
in direction and organization in America, as compared with Germany or
Russia, that it is easy to overlook its national significance. As a
national state the United States does not attempt philanthropy. The
separate States have their asylums as they have penitentiaries and
reformatories, but the nation performs no such function. Yet
philanthropic organization girdles the continent. The National
Conference of Charities and Corrections is one instance of a society
that meets annually in the interest of the depressed classes,
discusses their problems, and reports its findings to the public as a
basis for organized activity. Such an organization not only represents
the humanitarian principles and interest of individuals here and
there, but it helps to bind together local groups all over the country
that are working on an altruistic basis. Whole sections of territory
join in discussing still wider human interests. The Southern
Sociological Conference appeals to the whole South and calls upon the
rest of the country for speakers of reputation and wisdom.

327. =The Federal Council of Churches.=--It is fundamental to the
spirit and word of the American Constitution that church and state
shall not be united, but this does not prevent religious interests
from being cherished nationally, and ecclesiastical organizations from
having national affiliations. Modern churches are grouped first of all
in denominations, because of certain peculiarities, but most of the
denominations have spread over the country and propagated their type
as opportunity offered. National conferences and conventions,
therefore, take place regularly, bringing together Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, Baptists, or Methodists, as the case may be, to
consider the interests that are most vital to the denomination as a
whole, or which the denomination as a whole, in place of the local
churches, holds within its sphere of control. Politics and sectional
interests have sometimes divided denominations, large bodies have
sometimes split along conservative or radical lines, but the national
ideal has never been lost sight of, and national organizations enjoy
dignity and prestige. One of the most recent illustrations of a still
broader interest and deeper consciousness is the federation of more
than thirty evangelical Protestant denominations for better
acquaintance and larger achievement. Temporary movemen