The people of the Philippines, their religious progress and preparation for spiritual leadership in the Far East,

394 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES
possible way, by relieving him temporarily or by turning their
backs on him. Scientific charity follows a case until there is
permanent relief. It is Christ-like in its insistence that every
case is a challenge to attempt a complete cure. The man must
be lifted completely out of the environment which made a beggar of him, even though he may desire to be let alone. He
is socially and morally sick and he needs a physician. Scientific charity declares that it is just as wicked to put off a
socially sick man with a peseta as it would be to give an opiate
to a man with typhoid fever instead of sending for the doctor.
The public has been educated to use physicians for physical
diseases. Now the Associated Charities is seeking to educate
churches and individuals to call upon social doctors to cure
social illnesses. The attempt to organize the various charities
of Manila, so that they will cooperate effectively, had been full
of difficulties. Churches, both Protestant and Catholic, have
been accustomed to working independently, and only a long
process of education will change their habits.
A striking opportunity to prove its usefulness came to the
Associated Charities in 1918, when a great fire swept the San
Lazaro District of Manila, leaving several thousand victims
in sore distress. Relief stations were opened and sixteen thousand pesos were expended in supplying food, clothing, and
shelter to the homeless people. Other fires are happening every
few months, particularly in the bamboo-nipa sections of the
city, and typhoons pay their annual visitations; so that no year
passes without many demands for food, shelter, and clothing.
An average of three hundred garments per month are produced
by needy women in the Charities' rooms, the material being
largely cut from second-hand clothes. Many of the upper
classes are glad to have this use made of their discarded
garments.
In I9I9 the Associated Charities opened a temporary asylum
for widows, orphans, and abandoned children, but closed it a
year later and transferred its inmates to the Settlement House
of the Asociacion de Damas Filipinas, on Rizal Avenue. This
Asociaci6n de Damas Filipinas consists, as the name indicates,
of ladies of the Spanish-speaking generation. It was organ