National characteristics, American; United States -- Civilization
In the United States in 1903 there were 1500 hospitals costing about
$29,000,000 a year for maintenance: $9,000,000 of this came from public
funds, and the remaining $20,000,000 from charitable gifts and from
paying patients. One-third of the patients were in public institutions,
the other two-thirds in hospitals under private or religious control.
There is not a city of any consequence in America which is without good
hospital accommodations; and there are few countries in the world where
it is more comfortable for a stranger to break a leg or have a mild
attack of appendicitis. All this goes to show that the Americans
recognize the care of the sick and wounded as a part of the common
order. They perceive that the State never has been, and probably never
will be, able to do all that is needed without the help of benevolent
individuals, religious bodies, and philanthropic societies.
How generously this help is given in America, not only for hospitals,
but for all other objects of benevolence, may be seen from the fact that
the public gifts and bequests of private citizens for the year 1907
amounted to more than $100,000,000.
Let me give another illustration of voluntary social coöperation in this
sphere of action which lies at least in part beyond the reach of the
State. In all the American cities of large size, you will find
institutions which are called "Settlements,"--a vague word which has
been defined to mean "homes in the poorer quarters of a city where
educated men and women may live in daily contact with the working
people." The first house of this kind to be established was Toynbee Hall
in London, in 1885. Two years later the Neighbourhood Guild was founded
in New York, and in 1889 the College Settlement in the same city, and
Hull House in Chicago, were established. There are now reported some
three hundred of such settlement houses in the world, of which England
has 56, Holland 11, Scotland 10, France 4, Germany 2, and the United
States 207. I will take, as examples, Hull House in Chicago, and the
Henry Street Settlement in New York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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