we are not only helping the family, but we are educating others
in common-sense methods. In persuading to an important step, the value
of cooperation is illustrated by an instance taken from the Fourteenth
Report of the Boston Associated Charities:[4] "A respectable woman, who
had struggled for a year to keep her insane husband with her and the
little girls, at great risk to them and the neighborhood, was persuaded
in but a few days to let him go to the lunatic hospital. Of course, as
strangers, our opinions were entitled to little weight; but by
collecting the doctor's opinions and those of her own friends, all of
which she had heard singly, she was sufficiently impressed to take the
long necessary step."

5. Though we must make plans looking toward self-support, these are
not the only plans {193} within the scope of friendly visiting. Some
of the best visiting can be done after families are no longer in need.
The entry "dismissed--self-sustaining" on charitable records has a very
unsatisfactory sound to those who realize the further possibilities of
friendly help. After a family has learned to live without charitable
aid, there is a better chance of introducing its members to thrifty
ways of spending and saving, to better recreations, and to healthier
and more cleanly surroundings.

6. Our work as friendly visitors is an intensely personal work, and,
unlike other charity, it is best done alone. We cannot visit in
companies of two or three, nor can we talk very much about our poor
friends, except to those charitably interested, without spoiling our
relations with them. The district system of visiting among the poor,
which is still the system of German towns and of English parishes,
assigns a certain geographical boundary to each visitor. It has been
called the "space system" in contrast to the "case system" of friendly
visiting. The main objection to it is that it is not personal enough.
{194} One who is a friend to a whole street is not felt by the members
of any particular family to belong peculiarly to them, and there is
danger, moreover, of more official relations and of small jealousies
and neighborhood entanglements that are avoided by the friendly
visiting plan.

The district visitor is the ancestor of the friendly visitor. Brewing
a bit of broth for an aged cottager, reading beside some sick-bed,
sewing a warm garment for Peggy or Nancy--it is thus that our ancestors
lightly skimmed the surface o