Collateral Readings: "Individuality in the Work of Charity," George B. Buzelle in Proceedings of Thirteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 185 _sq_. "Scientific Charity," Mrs. Glendower Evans in Proceedings of Sixteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 24 _sq_. Chapters on "Scientific Charity" in "Problems of American Society," J. H. Crooker. Papers on Social Settlements in Proceedings of Twenty-third National Conference of Charities, pp. 106 _sq_. "The Causes of Poverty," F. A. Walker in "Century," Vol. LV, pp. 210 _sq_. "The Jukes," Richard Dugdale. "Tribe of Ishmael," Oscar McCulloch in Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 154 _sq_. "The Rooney Family," see Charles Booth's "Life and Labor of the People," Vol. VIII, pp. 317 _sq_. "Life in New York Tenement Houses," William T. Elsing in "Scribner's," Vol. XI, pp. 677 _sq_. "An Experiment in Altruism," Miss Margaret Sherwood. {17} CHAPTER II THE BREADWINNER A conference was held in one of our large cities lately of half a dozen church and charity workers, who had been called together to make some plan or agree upon some common principle in dealing with a certain family, to whom charitable relief had been given in an aimless way for many years with no good result. Three churches were represented, and the persons present had visited and relieved the family for periods ranging from three to ten years. Almost immediately, however, the fact was brought out at the conference that not one of these visitors had ever seen the man of the family, or had ever made any effort to see him. By way of excuse one visitor said she had always understood that the man was very good-for-nothing. But happily there is no better dispeller of mental {18} fog than a friendly conference of those who are in earnest, and it did not take long to convince these conferees that the man's good-for-nothingness was, in part at least, their own fault. I shall have occasion to speak more than once, in this book, of the power of suggestion. Even here, where these relief visitors had never given the head of the family a thought, they had taught him a lesson. From their whole line of conduct he must have received the suggestion that his neglect of his family was an affair of no consequence.