tions to the contrary, it would seem that, in
ordinary times, there is still work somewhere for those who have the
will and the skill to do it. The charity worker has discouragements
enough without allowing himself to be demoralized by the wild talk
about millions of skilled workers out of work. During times of panic,
even, the number of the unemployed is often grossly exaggerated.[6]

The fact which most directly concerns us is that a large majority of
those who are thrown upon charity through lack of employment are either
incapable or are unfit for service through bad habits, bad temper, lack
of references, ignorance of English, or through some physical defect.
Experience has proven that a certain proportion of these can be {34}
reinstated in the labor market if we are careful (1) not to make it too
easy for them to live without work, (2) if we will use every personal
endeavor to fit them for some kind of work, and (3) help them to find
and keep the work for which they are fitted. "Character is not cut in
marble; it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something
living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." [7]
Like our bodies, too, it may be made whole again by skilful treatment.

Those who are simply incapable, without bad habits or other defects,
are often the victims of their parents' necessities or greed: they were
put to work too early, and at work where there was no chance of
education or promotion. Sometimes they have been wilfully careless and
lazy, but, more often, the fault was either with the parents or with an
economic condition that denied them proper training. Of all this we
shall hear in connection with the children, but our present concern is
with the breadwinner. The man who "does not know how" is the football
of {35} industry; employed in work requiring nothing but muscle,
promptly discharged because easily replaced, he drifts from job to job,
and, at certain seasons of the year, being unable to adapt himself or
easily change from one kind of work to another, he is almost certain to
be unemployed.

Miss Octavia Hill calls attention to this in "Homes of the London
Poor." [8] "The fluctuations of work cause to respectable tenants the
main difficulties in paying their rent. I have tried to help them in
two ways. First, by inducing them to save; this they have done
steadily, and each autumn has found them with a small fund accumulated,
which has enabled them to mee