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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
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