Twenty years at Hull-house, with autobiographical notes . xpressesregret that the problems of the working class areso often confounded with the problems of the in-efficient and the idle, that although working peoplelive in the same street with those in need of charity,to thus confound two problems is to render thesolution of both impossible. I remember one family in which the father hadbeen out of work for this same winter, most of thefurniture had been pawned, and as the worn-outshoes could not be replaced the children could notgo to school. The mother was ill and barely ableto come for the s
Twenty years at Hull-house, with autobiographical notes . xpressesregret that the problems of the working class areso often confounded with the problems of the in-efficient and the idle, that although working peoplelive in the same street with those in need of charity,to thus confound two problems is to render thesolution of both impossible. I remember one family in which the father hadbeen out of work for this same winter, most of thefurniture had been pawned, and as the worn-outshoes could not be replaced the children could notgo to school. The mother was ill and barely ableto come for the supplies and medicines. Two yearslater she invited me to supper one Sunday eveningin the little home which had been completely re-stored, and she gave as a reason for the invitation i64 TWENTY YEARS AT HULL-HOUSE that she couldnt bear to have me remember themas they had been during that one winter, which sheinsisted had been unique in her twelve years ofmarried life. She said that it was as if she had metme, not as I am ordinarily, but as I should appear. \ \ I misshapen with rheumatism or with a face dis-torted by neuralgic pain; that it was not fair tojudge poor people that way. She perhaps un-consciously illustrated the difference between therelief-station relation to the poor and the Settle-ment relation to its neighbors, the latter wishing PROBLEMS OF POVERTY 165 to know them through all the varying conditions oflife, to stand by when they are in distress, but byno means to drop intercourse with them whennormal prosperity has returned, enabling the rela-tion to become more social and free from economicdisturbance. Possibly something of the same eflPort has to bemade within the Settlement itself to keep its ownsense of proportion in regard to the relation of thecrowded city quarter to the rest of the was in the spring following this terrible winter,during a journey to meet lecture engagements inCalifornia, that I found myself amazed at the largestretches of open c
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