=Edward T. Devine and Lilian Brant in “American Social Work in the Twentieth Century”= say (the first words of the book): “In the United States of America ‘social work’ has come into use in recent years as a comprehensive term, including charity and philanthropy, public relief, punishment and reformation and all other conscious efforts, whether by the state or on private initiative, to provide for the dependent, the sick, and the criminal, to diminish the amount of poverty, disease, and crime, and to improve general living and working conditions.” These statements obviously are not trying to distinguish between “social work” and the more primitive forms of “charity” and “philanthropy.” The pamphlet “=Social Work=,” issued by the American Association of Social Workers in 1922 disclaims any intention “to give an authoritative definition of these terms (i.e., charity, philanthropy, and social service) or of ‘social work,’” but it does authoritatively indicate that “social work as a profession” may have occasion to differentiate itself from charity and philanthropy (pp. 3 and 4). “In discussing social work as a profession it is necessary to clarify certain conceptions which are popularly confused with it. As is the case with any activity that has emerged into professional status and differentiated itself from the kind of activity in which any one of ordinary intelligence might participate, social work must live down a variety of names and conceptions which were common to it in its early and unprofessional forms.” “So we come to the term ‘social work’ for a connotation which at least has implicit implications of a process requiring specialized knowledge and skill sufficient to be called professional.” “It is well also to point out here that emphasis must be placed on ‘process’ as an aid to keeping in mind the fact that not what is done, but how it is done, is what constitutes the test of professional activity.” =“Education for Social Work,” by Jesse Frederick Steiner= (University of Chicago Press, 1921) gives, as its first chapter, a five-page statement of “The Nature of Social Work” which does not lend itself to quotation otherwise than _in toto_. It reports about the same conclusions as this thesis, which was prepared before Mr. Steiner’s study.