fruit in the same proportion as does the work of the
settlement, whether church settlement or secular, or in the same
proportion as many of the kindergartens, summer playgrounds and evening
recreation centers. Nevertheless, the slum post of the Army is doing
valuable work and should be supported.

A sweeping tenement house reform can do more than any number of
settlements; a settlement can do more than the Army slum post; but
neither the tenement reform nor the settlement does the work that a slum
post does. Probably the work done by other organizations most nearly
allied to that of the Army slum post is that done by the various
organizations of church deaconesses, which have been growing rapidly in
late years, in which women are employed by the churches to visit the
poor in their homes, and nurse the sick, besides other duties. If we
depend or count largely on the Army slum work to reform the slums, we
shall be disappointed in learning that, after years of successful growth
in the Industrial and Social Departments, the Army has but twenty slum
posts in the United States[87], some of these being very small, and that
it has no large number in other countries. Such as it is, the work is
well worth while. But let us examine its origin, present status and the
reason for its relatively small growth.

In the beginning of the Army movement, Mrs. Booth, the late wife of
General Booth, supplemented her husband's work by a personal visitation
of the people in their homes. She proved the utility of this work and
also its place among the works of women. From her early efforts has
sprung the more widely organized department of slum work.

The slum work may be divided into three divisions: visitation work, the
slum nursery, and the maintenance of the slum post. Wearing a humbler
garb, even, than the regular Army uniform, the lassies start out on
their daily tours of visitation. They take care of the sick, and at the
same time, they clean the home and put everything in order. Often they
come upon cases of need and of want, and then they provide the little
necessaries: a sack of coal, a supply of food, or some needed clothing.
They take the children from the worn-out woman and amuse and instruct
them, while the mother does her work; and, wherever they go, although
most plainly dressed, they are clean and neat, and they strive to make
everything else clean and neat.

While this visitation work is going on, another most urgent need i