s it is better they should give it.

This brings me to another point. In the country it is still possible to
keep to the ideal neighborly charity, but in the city there are quarters
where the misery is wholesale, and wholesale scientific methods must be
applied to relieve it. The Associated Charities in Boston, for instance,
do a kind of work which must be done unless we are willing to sit down
and let all the innocent suffer with the guilty. And many of the leaders
have the ideal spirit, and they hold up ideal standards for the visitors
of the poor, that is, they ask us to visit the poor with love in our
hearts. The work to be done in cities is so enormous that every woman of
leisure who feels the desire to help should certainly be encouraged to
do so, and I am even inclined to think that where so well-organized a
system exists as in the Associated Charities, it is a saving of energy
for her to put herself under its direction though not so wholly as to
allow her no means or leisure for her personal sphere of action to
expand naturally.

As long as we try to do the nearest duties there will always be failure
enough to keep us humble and to make it safe for us spiritually to
undertake something beyond. A girl tries to help her brothers, and
instead of admiring her for it they frankly tell her how far she fulls
short. But if she does a tithe as much for the poor she is likely to get
some thanks, more or less sincere, and all her circle of friends admire
her. This pleasant encouragement does her no harm as long as she has the
antidote of the family criticism, so I would let every ardent woman have
some outside work, and the Associated Charities will find room for every
worker. Some women can help children by teaching them and amusing them,
and this is the most efficient kind of work, for it prevents crime and
misery. Some can sew for the poor, some can cook, some can manage
tenement houses as Octavia Hill has done.

To give what we call practical help we must be practical ourselves. I
think if the busy housekeepers who do their own work have time to visit
the poor, their suggestions are of infinitely more value than any given
by rich ladies who are making a business of charity; but such women have
little time, so the rich must humbly try to take their place.

I know a charming girl whose mother does not allow her to go into the
kitchen. She found great difficulty at school in learning the weights
and measures, and at la