Charities for Children in San Francisco [pp. 78-101]

Charities for Children in San Francisco.
tract more public interest, and find the
financial question easier. It would seem
to one taking a general survey that it
would be much better, for instance, for
a charity of this sort to refer a sick person to the dispensaries for medicine,
than to give it out of an income already
too small for its own more special needs.
This is the same reflection that so
often comes in this survey of the charities, the immense increase of efficiency
that a complete knowledge of each other's work, and a due partitioning out of
the work among them, and co-operation
together, would produce. Here, for instance, one kindergartner reports a case
in which a hard-working mother had to
leave her child at home alone, — result,
an injury that kept her at home for
weeks to take care of him. A day-home
in the vicinity would have prevented
that; and I must think that some energetic co-operative effort would establish
a system of day homes, devoted to the
one object of caring for the babies while
the mother is at work, supported by a
common association, and so managed
with much economy of effort. It is a
charity that need cost very little, for the
voluntary services of quite young girls
could help in it immensely, and much
vague charitable fervor could be turned
to account in this way; or delicate or
old women appealing to other charities
could be made self-supporting, if they
could be trusted to "tend baby" gently
and honestly during the day. Indeed,
the ways in which all these charities
could be made to play into each others'
hands, to the vast saving of expense and
increase of accomplishment, is well nigh
endless..
The foundling homes are primarily
refuges for the mothers, and homes for
the infants only as this necessarily accompanies the other work, and need not
be farther spoken of here.
Before leaving the subject of San Francisco charities for children, I should say
a few words of this State asylum for
the feeble-minded, and also of the Deaf,
Dumb, and Blind Asylum, since these
are largely filled from San Francisco.
The Deaf, Dumb and Blind Asylum at
Berkeley has long been one of the institutions the State has been especially
proud of. Mr. Wines, on his first
visit, spoke of it more enthusiastically
than of any other charity here, intimated
that we scarcely appreciate it, and
quoted some one to the effect that
Mr. Wilkinson was the best teacher
of the deaf in the country. The Home
for Feeble-minded Children is onlylately
established. It grew from the work of
two ladies, who had become, through circumstances, especially interested in the
question of the care of such children;
and these two, Mrs. Robert Bentley and
Mrs. H. R. Judah, neither of them living
in the city, nor having any especial opportunity to forward such a matter, canvassed the subject so indefatigably and
convincingly that in time, chiefly
through the interest they awaked in Mrs.
Kate B. Lathrop of this city, they
brought about them a circle of men and
women interested in establishing this
much needed charity. During I883 the
sum of $I3,00ooo was raised, and a Home
opened at White Sulphur Springs. Afterward it was moved to Alameda, then
was adopted by the State, and located
at Santa Clara. It has now II7 inmates.
It will be seen that the city is almost
completely netted with means for caring
for children, so far as they go. Scarcely
an aspect of need can be thought of for
which there is not some provision. In
hardly any case is the provision extensive enough to reach all for whom it is
intended; probably in no case does it
reach all whom it might even with its
present resources, for simple lack of
means to get at them. The Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
leaves without help children as wickedly
abused as any it rescues, because it does
not know of them, nor they of it; many
little invalids lie suffering in ignorance
r
100
[Jan.