This need of more knowledge after every step before the next can be taken, this constant challenge offered by our uncharted social life has caused the development of an interest in observation and investigation independent of any direct errands of mercy. Many known abuses exist which are sure to claim their victims from time to time and a certain amount of social work takes the form of an independent crusade against such abuses. This type of social work often embarks on a search for causes of trouble which proves endless and indistinguishable from the search for knowledge. A great deal of social work is now of this sort--the studies of the Russell Sage Foundation and the lesser local foundations for research and prevention, the original “Pittsburgh Survey” and all those that have followed it, the careful neighborhood studies of the settlements from the “Hull House Maps and Papers” on and the intensive group studies, studies, comparative statistics and stock takings of uncounted miscellaneous agencies. Inquiry bids fair to be as common in social work as ever alms was in charity.[26] THE EXTENSION OF THE PHILANTHROPIC INTEREST The extension of a philanthropic interest into new fields, the third result of scientific thoroughness and system has, bewildered us and occasioned most of the inquiry as to what social work may be. Today in the administrative departments of Federal and State governments, in the churches, the courts, the schools, the hospitals there is work being done which has a double allegiance. On the one hand it is responsible to government, religion, law, education or public health, as the case may be, and on the other it is all alike responsible to social work.