Social Civics

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the way in which American communities are dealing with the problems of poverty, crime, and delinquency.

Poverty and Pauperism.—Poverty is one of the very oldest among human problems; two thousand years ago, in Biblical times, the world was trying to find a solution for it and it has not ceased to try ever since. In all ages and in all countries there have been groups of unfortunate people who, through their own fault or the fault of others, are not able to provide for their own subsistence. It is to the condition of such people, whose earnings do not enable them to maintain the normal standard of living, that we apply the term poverty. Not all who are poor, therefore, are in poverty, but only those who are so poor that their health and physical efficiency are being impaired by lack of earning power. Some of those who are in poverty become dependent upon private or public charity, and these we call paupers. Pauperism, in other words, is a condition of dependence upon the agencies of poor-relief. Many thousands of persons live in poverty, yet are not paupers. They struggle along, able only to make the barest sort of living, and often suffer great privations rather than apply for any form of charity.

The Extent of Poverty and Pauperism in the United States.—There are no accurate figures showing the extent of poverty in the United States. |The number of paupers in public institutions.| The census of 1920 listed nearly a million persons in charitable institutions of one sort or another, of whom about one hundred thousand were paupers in public almshouses. But this census made no computation of the number receiving poor-relief in their own homes, which must be several times as large as that in institutions. It would probably be within bounds to say that five persons out of every hundred in the United States are partly or wholly dependent upon private or public aid. Probably as many more are in a condition of poverty, but continue to struggle along without assistance from others. We may say, therefore, that poverty holds about ten per cent of the whole population in its iron grip; hence it is no exaggeration to speak, as social-workers often do, of the “submerged tenth”.

Compared with other countries, however, this is not an excessive proportion. In the countries of Europe the percentage of paupers is much larger. Poverty is usually more widespread in thickly-populated regions where there are large groups of industrial workers. In London it has been estimated that at least thirty per cent of the people are below the poverty line; in New York City the estimate is twenty-five per cent. The cities everywhere contribute far more than their due proportion to the impoverished classes. Poverty is least prevalent, as a rule, in the agricultural districts.^[260]

The Causes of Poverty.—The causes of poverty are numerous and complicated but they can all be grouped into two general classes: First, those which are traceable to the individual, and second, those which are attributable to the environment in which he lives. These we may distinguish by calling them individual and social causes.

Among the individual causes of poverty the most common are illness, accident, old age, degeneracy, bereavement, intemperance, shiftlessness, and ignorance. Illness is probably the most important single cause. The figures compiled by poor-relief organizations show that it is the immediate reason for at least one-quarter of all the applications which come to them for assistance, and is a contributory reason in the case of many more. Accidents which result in either temporary or permanent incapacity to do full work have also been an important cause of poverty in the past, but they are no longer so to the same extent in those states which have made provision for workmen’s insurance (see p. 411). Old age comes to all in time and there are many thousands who make no provision for its coming. This class includes many who have worked hard all their lives, have reared families, and have been useful citizens, but who have been either unable or unwilling to save. In some European countries, as has been pointed out, provision is made for them by means of old age pension systems. Bereavement, particularly the loss by death of the family’s main support, has been a frequent cause of poverty among women and children. To some extent this has been alleviated by the practice of making provision for mothers’ pensions and by the increasing extent to which men who have dependents are now securing life insurance.

Degeneracy, which is also an important cause of poverty, may be defined as inherited mental or moral weakness. Feeble-minded parents often transmit this defect to their children, who start life with a handicap which they are not usually able to overcome. It has been estimated that nearly one-half of all the inmates of public institutions are below the normal standard of mentality. Many years ago a careful study was made of a certain family—the Jukes—through four generations, great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and children. Among seven hundred persons in this family, beginning with degenerate great-grandparents, no fewer than five hundred became at some time or other recipients of public poor-relief. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that they also contributed far more than their due proportion to the prisons and insane asylums.

Then, again, some people who are neither mentally nor morally degenerate, are born with physical handicaps or acquire these handicaps early in life; such, for instance, are the deaf-mutes, the blind, and the crippled. They are the ones whom we most commonly meet on the public streets begging or selling trinkets, or playing some sort of instrument as an excuse for what is really begging. Intemperance, too, has figured largely among the causes of poverty during many centuries, but so far as the United States is concerned it is not likely to do so in the future. Alcohol is one of the important factors in the problem of poverty which can be placed under control by the action of society. Shiftlessness, ignorance, bad habits, and vice are all causes of varying importance, but in the main they are only immediate causes; the underlying causes are usually to be found in some mental, moral, or physical defect of the individual, or they arise from a poor environment.

The social causes of poverty are also numerous. Unemployment is one of them, and it is in many cases due to no fault of the individual worker. More often it is the outcome of a serious imperfection in our industrial organization (see p. 417). The underpayment of the worker, particularly the underpayment of women and children in industry, has also contributed to the problem of poverty. It means that the workers are under-nourished and therefore unable to maintain their normal strength; they are unable to save anything for use in case of sickness or old age, and hence have to fall back upon the agencies of private or public assistance whenever misfortune comes. Minimum wage laws (see p. 416) aim to protect society from having to pay the penalty which results, both directly and indirectly, from the underpayment of labor. Unsanitary conditions of living, bad housing, and overcrowding are causes of poverty—they are social causes because society creates such conditions and permits them to continue. Unsanitary conditions lead to illness, and illness results in unemployment. But they are also, in a sense, the effects of poverty; they are conditions of life to which, under our present social and economic organization, the poor are compelled to submit by reason of their poverty.

Defects in our educational system have been productive of more poverty than people commonly imagine. It is not without significance that poverty is always widespread in those countries and those regions where illiteracy and ignorance are prevalent. Compulsory public education is one of the greatest measures for the prevention of poverty that the world has ever devised. |Relation of the school system to poverty.| While the system of public education in the United States is exceedingly efficient on the whole, it is nevertheless true that many thousands of children are growing up without enough education to ensure them a fair chance of success in life.

Some would also include our immigration policy among the social causes of poverty. Until recent years these immigrants were permitted to come in almost unrestricted numbers; they concentrated, for the most part, in large cities; they contributed to overcrowding and by their competition for labor forced down the level of wages in unskilled employments. The causes of poverty, in short, are not all traceable to the faults or misfortunes of the individual. Society as a whole is responsible for some of them.^[261]

How We Deal with the Problem of Poverty.—The public attitude in regard to the problem of poverty has undergone a marked change during the past fifty years. For many centuries poverty was looked upon as the result of human perverseness, the outcome of purely individual causes which were likely to endure as long as human nature remained the same. |Older methods of dealing with the poor.| It was taken for granted that the poor would be with us always; that poverty could not be prevented by any action on the part of society, and that the only thing to do was to punish the shiftless while helping the worthy poor by giving them public and private aid. The measures for the relief of the poor taken by the governments of various European countries and by most American communities until comparatively recent years were based upon this attitude. Those who could work and would not were branded as vagrants and put in jail. Those who were in poverty through sickness, accident, old age, degeneracy, intemperance, or other individual causes were taken into such institutions as hospitals, infirmaries, almshouses, homes for inebriates, and the like. The people were everywhere encouraged to give alms to the poor, but the prevention of poverty by organized social action received little or no attention.

The public attitude, especially the attitude of the more enlightened part of the public, has now changed or is changing. We know from a careful study of the problem that poverty is no more an essential concomitant of civilized life than were piracy, slavery, bubonic plague, or universal drunkenness in years now long gone by. Poverty can be eradicated as these things have been, although not by any means so easily. The individual causes of poverty, of course, will always be at work. Old age will continue to come upon mankind, and we can hardly hope under any circumstances to get rid of sickness and accidents entirely. But society can at least bring it about that old age, illness, and accident, not to speak of unemployment and other social causes, will no longer bring inevitable poverty in their train. Attention is now being given, therefore, to measures of prevention; and almsgiving has come to be recognized as a mere makeshift way of dealing with the problem. It is like trying to put an end to all diseases and to wipe illness off the face of the earth by merely giving people medicine after they become sick.

The Temporary Remedies.—The only permanent solution for the problem of poverty is the removal of the underlying causes. This, however, cannot be accomplished in a day, and in the meantime various measures of temporary alleviation must be provided by the public authorities and by private organizations.

Public provision for the care of the poor takes two forms known respectively as indoor and outdoor relief. By indoor relief is meant the care of the poor in institutions maintained by the state, county, or city. There was a time when paupers of all types were herded together into the same poorhouse, but it is now the policy to provide, so far as practicable, different public institutions for the sick, the mentally defective, the aged, and the young. Hence, in many states we have hospitals for chronic cases, institutions for the feeble-minded, homes for the aged, institutions for the care of orphans, schools for the blind, and so on.

By outdoor relief is meant the giving of assistance to the poor in their own homes. Many years ago this was the more common plan of dealing with the problem; it still exists in many American communities. People who are in need apply to the overseers of the poor or to some other public authority from whom they receive, after proper investigation, such assistance in the form of food, clothing, fuel, or medicine as they may urgently require. Some of the larger cities have abandoned altogether the giving of outdoor relief at the public expense because they have found this system open to grave abuses. Unless administered with great care, it encourages shiftlessness and results in the expenditure of large amounts from the public funds. The tendency nowadays is to leave outdoor relief to be provided by private organizations although some communities still take care of the most urgent cases from the public funds. These private organizations are sometimes connected with the churches but more often they are entirely non-sectarian, made up of generous men and women who give both time and money to the work.

Private outdoor relief often leads to indiscriminate almsgiving, thus lending encouragement to wastefulness and imposture. People who are too lazy to earn an honest living apply to various organizations for help and sometimes obtain it from several of them. |The organization of relief agencies.| To eliminate this overlapping central bodies known as Charity Organization Societies, or Associated Charities, or Family Welfare Societies have been formed in many of the larger American communities. Their function is to serve as a clearing house of information concerning all applicants for assistance and in other ways to make the work of the individual organizations more efficient.

The Permanent Remedies.—The permanent solution of the problem of poverty must be sought in comprehensive measures of prevention. Some of these measures are already being taken in the more progressive states; others have been proposed and are steadily gaining public support. |Social insurance.| Insurance against sickness and accident, minimum wage laws, mothers’ pensions, are already doing their share in the prevention of poverty. Old age pensions have been established abroad and in time will doubtless be provided for the American worker. Insurance against unemployment may be inadvisable (see p. 418) but the organization of industry can be so improved as to reduce the amount of unemployment now existing. |Other remedies.| The prohibition of the liquor traffic has marked an important step in the direction of reducing poverty. Vocational schools for the deaf, the blind, and the crippled, are now training these unfortunates in the art of earning their own living. The enforcement of laws relating to compulsory education will reduce illiteracy and thus decrease the class from which poverty secures most of its recruits. Present restrictions upon immigration, if they are continued, will render more easy the maintenance of American standards of living among those who toil with their hands. By the segregation of degenerates in public institutions, moreover, we can prevent the propagation of degeneracy.^[262] Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions of living are being prevented by modern city planning and good housing laws.

Now it is doubtful whether all of these measures put together will avail to wipe out poverty entirely, but if they are vigorously applied the amount of poverty in the United States will certainly be much reduced. |The danger of too many remedies.| There is always a danger, of course, that laws and regulations designed to promote the well-being of the poor may over-reach themselves, and may result in placing additional burdens upon the wage-earning classes. Attempts to narrow the gulf between the rich and the poor by the levying of discriminatory taxes do not usually succeed; in the end they merely augment the hardships of the poor. It is customary for sociologists to speak of poverty as a “social disease” and to assure us that like any other disease it can be eradicated. That is all very true. But diseases are not eradicated by striking at the heads of healthy people in order that they may have a smaller advantage over the sick. Neither will the plague of poverty be cured by measures which strike at the well-to-do for the mere reason that they are so much better off than the poor. The poor can never be made rich by the simple expedient of making the rich poorer.

The Problem of the Mentally Defective.—There are various forms of mental defectiveness, ranging from feeble-mindedness to violent insanity. The total number of mentally defective persons in the United States is estimated to exceed half a million. Until relatively recent years no careful distinction was made between persons afflicted with different forms of mental trouble; all were treated in much the same way. |Old and new methods of dealing with the insane.| The usual plan was to bring them together in large asylums where the violently insane were kept under close restraint while the “harmless” inmates were given somewhat greater freedom. This crude method of dealing with unfortunates who needed medical treatment far more than they needed restraint and confinement has now been almost everywhere abandoned, and the treatment of mental defectiveness is being carried on in accordance with more scientific methods. These scientific methods involve the careful study and diagnosis of each particular case and the substitution of medical care for mechanical restraint. In response to this treatment a considerable proportion of the cases have proved capable of marked improvement, and sometimes entire recovery. It should be mentioned, however, that some forms of insanity are not curable by any known form of scientific treatment. A permanent reduction in the number of mentally-defective persons can best be achieved by preventing the transmission of hereditary defects, by the proper treatment of mental ailments as soon as the first symptoms appear, and by the removal of two things which have contributed greatly to the spread of insanity in the past, namely, alcoholism and the drug habit.

The Problem of Crime.—A crime is an offence against society. In early days all offences were regarded as having been committed against individuals. The person who stole something was looked upon as having wronged the owner, and the owner was entitled to secure his own redress. But with the development of organized society there grew up the idea that the whole community had an interest in the prevention of wrong-doing, and that wrongs which were ostensibly directed against single individuals were in reality committed against the whole people. |Evolution of the criminal law.| So society took upon itself the responsibility for making laws to protect the rights of individuals, and for the imposition of punishment whenever these laws are violated. A crime is an offence against society because it involves some violation of a law which has been made in the interest of all. An act may constitute a crime, therefore, without being morally wrong. It is not morally wrong to park an automobile alongside a hydrant, but it is in most cities a violation of the law to do so, and punishable in the courts. The courts enforce the law whatever it is.

The Classification of Crimes.—It was formerly the custom to classify all crimes as treasons, felonies, or misdemeanors. A treason was an attempt to overthrow the state by rebellion or otherwise; a felony was a serious offence against persons or property, such as murder or burglary; while the term misdemeanor was used to include all the less serious violations of the law, such as selling milk without a license or disregarding a sign to keep off the grass in the public parks. Nowadays, however, a more elaborate grouping of crimes is usually made. |The various types of offences.| This grouping usually includes (a) offences against the public peace and order, such as treason, rioting, and any obstruction of the officers of the law; (b) offences against the public health and morals, such as bigamy, gambling, the sale of intoxicants, or the pollution of public water supplies; (c) offences against the person, such as murder, manslaughter, or assault; and (d) offences against property, including burglary, theft, fraud, and so on. This list of offences does not include such things as breaches of contract, libel, and failure to pay debts, for these are not crimes but torts or civil wrongs. They are still regarded as offences against individuals and not against society. The aggrieved individual brings his own suit in the courts, and the courts merely act as arbiters to see that justice is done between man and man.

The Causes of Crime.—The causes of crime, like those of poverty, are both individual and social. |1. Individual causes of crime.| Men sometimes take to wrongdoing because they are mentally or morally defective, having inherited traits of degeneracy. Handicapped by these defects in making an honest living they often resort to crime at an early age. Bad training in the home, habits of truancy acquired during school age, and aversion to work are all individual causes which promote criminality. |2. Social causes of crime.| The social causes include poverty, the influence of bad companions, the lack of efficiency on the part of police in cities, the undue leniency of the courts in some cases, and the difficulty which even honest men sometimes encounter in obeying the host of laws which our lawmakers are turning out every year. It is significant that crimes against property, such as burglary and theft become less frequent when the country is prosperous and more numerous in times of depression when so many persons are out of employment. Among illiterates the proportion of offenders against the law is very high, so that the failure to enforce rigidly the laws relating to school attendance must also be set down as one of the social causes of criminality.

The Extent of Crime in the United States.—More than half a million persons are sent to jails or reformatories in the United States every year. The number of those who are let off with the payment of fines is much larger. Even these two figures put together do not give us the number of crimes committed, however, for it is probable that the majority of crimes do not result in the detection of the guilty person, and many minor crimes are not reported to the police at all. The cost of maintaining police systems for the prevention of crime, courts for the trial of accused persons, and prisons for the incarceration of the convicted, is about a billion dollars per year, or about as much as the country spends upon education.

Whether the number of crimes, taking the country as a whole, is increasing more rapidly than the growth of population we do not know. This is because the figures in some states are not carefully or uniformly kept. But crime has been increasing in the large cities during the past few decades. This is partly because the crowded cities afford unusual opportunities to escape detection and partly because police inefficiency or corruption has encouraged the commission of crimes with impunity. The number of crimes committed in the United States is much greater, in proportion to population, than in any of the chief European countries.^[263]

The Theory of Punishment.—Among primitive people punishment was regarded as a retaliation or vengeance, but as civilization developed this notion gave way to one in which punishment was looked upon as a means of warning other people from committing similar crimes. In either case the feeling was that punishment ought to be severe. |The old severity.| Severity, rather than certainty of punishment was depended upon to deter people from committing crimes. A century ago in England, for example, men were put to death for stealing small sums of money and were sent to jail for long terms when they failed to pay their debts. But even this severity of punishment did not achieve the desired end, for crimes were relatively more numerous in England a century ago than they are today.

In due course the public intelligence was led to the conclusion that certainty of detection and punishment, rather than severity, was the best way of securing the observance of the laws.^[264] Since the prime object of punishment is neither to visit the wrath of society upon the offender, nor yet to reform him (although this is an incidental object), but to protect the people against the commission of crimes, it follows that the penalty should be no more severe than is necessary to achieve this object. Hence there are gradations of punishment, each adjusted to the degree in which the offence constitutes a challenge to the well-being of society. If murder is more severely penalized than manslaughter, it is not because the victim suffers more in one case than in the other. He has lost his life in either case, and no penalty can restore it. It is not the atrociousness of a crime that makes it serious, but the degree of danger to the whole community involved.

Prisons and Prison Reform.—Until a generation ago the treatment of prisoners in all parts of the country was inhuman. Offenders of all types, old and young, were thrown together into the same institutions. They were brutally treated by those in charge, confined in narrow, damp cells, given poor food to eat and rarely set to work at any useful employment. Even yet these conditions have not wholly disappeared from every part of the United States. But the movement for the reform of prisons and prison methods has made notable progress during the past twenty years.

The main features in prison reform may be briefly stated. |1. Classification of prisoners.| First, in point of importance, is the classifying of prisoners and the sending of each class to a special institution instead of herding them all together in one county jail. Some prisoners are hardened criminals and not easy to reform. Others are first offenders, persons who have never been previously convicted. With humane treatment and the opportunity to learn a trade these prisoners can often be sent out into the world, when their terms expire, with the likelihood of their becoming good citizens. There are others who also need to be segregated, such as juvenile offenders and those who are mentally defective. Prison reform involves the separation and special treatment of each class.

Another feature of prison reform is the humanizing of discipline. It has been the general custom in prisons to punish any serious breach of the rules by placing the offender in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. Better results are now being obtained by giving privileges to those prisoners who behave properly and taking these privileges away from all who do not. This plan involves the grading of prisoners according to their conduct, the best-behaved men being placed in the first class and allowed various privileges. A system of marks and demerits is used to determine the grade of each prisoner. Solitary confinement is reserved for the incorrigibles only.^[265]

Along with the system of classifying and grading prisoners, a general betterment of internal prison conditions has been taking place. It is now generally recognized that all prisoners should be kept employed at useful labor, that wherever practicable those who have not already learned a trade should be taught one during their prison terms, that those who are illiterate should learn to read and write, that the labor of prisoners should not be farmed out to employers as has so often been the case in the past, that prisoners should not be subjected to unnecessary humiliation, and that they should be given such measure of self-government as can be safely entrusted to them. Outdoor employment on state farms and state roads is replacing, to a considerable extent, the activities of the prison workshop.

Indeterminate Sentences and the Parole System.—Two marked improvements in correctional methods have been introduced by the use of indeterminate sentences and releases on parole. The old plan was to sentence every prisoner for a fixed term, two years, ten years, or some such period. The convict then served out his full term, no more and no less, irrespective of his behavior. This plan is now being abolished. Instead it is becoming the general practice to make the sentences indeterminate, as for example, not less than two nor more than five years. By good behavior the prisoner is then enabled to secure his release when the minimum period has expired. This method is particularly desirable in the case of young offenders who are sent to reformatories. The parole system is also used as a means of encouraging good behavior and reformation on the part of prisoners. Where this system is in operation the prison officials are permitted to release prisoners, even before their minimum terms have expired, upon promise to give society no further trouble. If the paroled prisoner should violate this promise, he is brought back to finish his term. It has been found that very few paroled prisoners fail to keep their promises.

The Probation System.—The number of persons committed to prison has been considerably reduced by the use of probation. In the case of first offences, where the crime is not serious, it is now the usual practice in many courts to place the offender on probation for a given period. This means that instead of being taken to jail he is placed under the surveillance of a probation officer. These probation officers are attached to the courts; their duty is to help probationers, keep a watchful eye on them, and report from time to time how they are getting along.^[266]

The Problem of Juvenile Delinquency.—Great progress has been made during the past twenty-five years in the treatment of juvenile offenders. Persons under eighteen years of age were formerly dealt with by the regular criminal tribunals; in many of the larger cities they are now brought before a special Juvenile Court. Where such courts do not exist it is the usual practice to have juvenile cases brought before the regular court at a special session. The offenders, in serious cases, are usually sent to reform schools or other institutions where vocational instruction is given. For minor offences, particularly where there is no previous record of appearance in the juvenile court, the offender is placed in charge of a probation officer. The purpose of the probation system is to secure the reformation of the offenders, not to enforce punishment.^[267]

The Divorce Problem.—The steady increase in the number of divorces has tended to make juvenile delinquency more difficult to handle; in other respects also it constitutes a social problem of the first magnitude.^[268] Several economic and social changes have tended to make divorces more common. The development of industry is one of them. Before modern industry afforded employment for women, the household was almost the sole center of feminine activity. But under present economic conditions most women find no great difficulty in earning their own living and this has engendered a feeling of self-reliance. Mention may likewise be made of the fact that the rights and privileges of women have been more strongly stressed by law and custom during recent years. Women have been given the legal right to own property, to vote, and to hold office. These things have helped to develop a spirit of independence. Social conditions have also changed. In the old days men who divorced their wives and women who divorced their husbands were frowned upon by their neighbors, but this weapon of social ostracism has been gradually losing its power because society has come to recognize the justice of granting divorces for adequate reasons.

How May the Situation be Remedied?—In seeking a remedy for any political, social, or economic evil we must first turn to the causes. The increase in the number of divorces has been due in considerable measure, as already pointed out, to the growth of industrial opportunities for women and to the readiness with which society tolerates the granting of divorces. It is also due, in some degree, to the conditions of life in large cities where the nervous strain caused by over-crowding makes it more difficult to meet the complex domestic problems patiently. It is significant that divorces are much more common in the large cities than in the rural districts. In part it is due also to the lax divorce laws of some states, where the courts are permitted to grant divorces on the flimsiest pretexts, and to the absence of sufficiently strict regulations designed to prevent hasty marriages.

Some of these causes are hard to remedy. The economic independence of women is a new condition which cannot be changed. Some progress has been made in various cities of the country by the establishment of special tribunals known as Courts of Domestic Relations whose function it is to adjust family quarrels. These courts have proved their value by keeping many cases out of the divorce courts. It has been suggested that we ought to amend the national constitution so as to provide that no divorces shall be granted except by the federal courts. This would make the rules uniform throughout the United States and prevent the securing of divorces on trivial grounds. A proposal for such an amendment is now being considered by Congress. Meanwhile some of the states have come to the conclusion that a check should be placed upon hasty marriages and have consequently made laws requiring that persons intending to be married shall file notice of their intention a certain number of days before the marriage takes place. These various remedies are good enough so far as they go, but the only permanent and effective remedy is the education of public opinion to a point where it will use its influence to check the stream of divorces. Social ostracism is a powerful weapon in the hands of any community that wishes to use it. The immediate need is to educate the American people in the homes, in the schools, and in the churches, so that they may appreciate the gravity of the problem and insist upon its being properly solved.

E. T. Towne, Social Problems, pp. 285-307 (Poor Relief); pp. 184-207 (Mental Defectives); pp. 208-234 (Crime and Correction);

H. R. Burch and S. H. Patterson, American Social Problems, pp. 200-250 (Poor Relief); pp. 271-288 (Mental Defectives); pp. 237-270 (Crime and Correction);

Charles A. Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, pp. 299-325 (Poor Relief); pp. 326-353 (Crime and Correction);

A. G. Warner, American Charities, especially pp. 36-63;

C. R. Henderson, Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes, especially pp. 1-39;

F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation, especially pp. 121-132 (The Reformation of the Criminal);

Maurice Parmelee, Poverty and Social Progress, pp. 168-187.

1. The causes of poverty and how we may get rid of them. Relative importance of the various causes in your own state and community. Analyze each of these causes and ascertain what measures have been taken to deal with each. Study the experience of foreign countries with old-age pensions and unemployment allowances. Note the effect, if any, of workmen’s insurance, mothers’ pensions, and minimum wage laws in various American states. Suggest further steps for removing the fundamental causes of poverty. References: E. T. Towne, Social Problems, pp. 290-301; H. R. Burch and S. H. Patterson, American Social Problems, pp. 205-216; E. T. Devine, Misery and its Causes, pp. 1-50; Robert Hunter, Poverty, pp. 1-65; W. H. Dawson, Social Insurance, passim.

2. The care of dependent children. References: A. G. Warner, American Charities, pp. 220-228; C. R. Henderson, Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes, pp. 98-120; G. B. Mangold, Child Problems, pp. 293-345.

3. Prison reform: how far should it be carried? References: E. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation, pp. 312-363; T. M. Osborne, Within Prison Walls, pp. 24-58; Ibid., Society and Prisons, pp. 185-235; C. R. Henderson, The Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes, pp. 276-307.

4. The divorce problem in its social and economic aspects. Early history of the problem. The spread of divorce in the United States. Comparison with other countries. Causes of divorce. Relative importance of these causes. Effects on family organization. Effects upon the children concerned. Economic results of divorce. The possible remedies. Probable effectiveness of these remedies. Conclusions. References: C. A. Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, pp. 147-166; W. F. Willcox, The Divorce Problem, passim; J. P. Lichtenberger, Divorce; A study in social causation (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Vol. XXXV, No. 3, pp. 52-96, 151-171); J. Q. Dealey, The Family in its Sociological Aspects, pp. 73-108; United States Bureau of the Census, Report for 1910 (See Abstract, Sections on Marital Conditions); H. Bosanquet, The Family, pp. 260-314; W. Goodsell, The Family as a Social and Educational Institution, pp. 456-496.

1. The treatment of the poor in earlier days. Thomas Mackay, Public Relief of the Poor, pp. 35-68.

2. Unemployment as a cause of poverty. E. T. Devine, Misery and its Causes, pp. 113-146.

3. Old-age pensions abroad. W. H. Dawson, Social Insurance in Germany, pp. 1-21.

4. The problem of the deaf and the blind. E. T. Towne, Social Problems, pp. 161-181.

5. Poor relief organizations in the United States. C. R. Henderson, Modern Methods of Charity, pp. 380-451.

6. The problem of the mental defectives. H. R. Burch and S. H. Patterson, American Social Problems, pp. 271-288.

7. Theories of crime and punishment. T. N. Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 654-673.

8. The work of Jeremy Bentham. A. V. Dicey, The Relation Between Law and Public Opinion in England, pp. 167-209.

9. Prison self-government. F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation, pp. 364-412.

10. Fundamental factors in the prevention of crime. F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation, pp. 413-461.

11. Juvenile courts. Bernard Flexner and R. N. Baldwin, Juvenile Courts and Probation, pp. 12-78; T. D. Eliot, The Juvenile Court and the Community, pp. 1-41.