A definition of social work: A thesis in sociology

								

charitable interest into new fields.[20]

THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF SERVICE
The converts to a scientific method undertook to work within the
traditional field of charity with a new thoroughness and system.[21]
Fired with the belief of their times in a tenable norm of prosperity
and a continuous progress dependent only on scientific control of our
environment they naturally hoped that the most stubborn situation could
be harmonized with the general melioration by the use of appropriate
methods and they were no longer content to offer only relief, work,
care for the helpless and such simple services as were once all that
was thought of. They constantly challenged the applicability of old
palliative expedients and looked for reconstructive measures. “For
every one thing,” writes Miss Richmond, “that could then (1832) be
done about a man’s attitude toward his life and his social relations,
about his health, housing, work and recreation, there are now (1917)
a dozen things to do. The power to analyze a human situation closely
as distinguished from the old method of falling back upon a few
general classifications, grows with the consciousness of the power to
get things done.”[22] This change in expectation may be seen in the
nomenclature of the tasks which social work has set itself. At first
“relief” was the objective, then “adequate relief” and now it is
“rehabilitation.” The methods were, first the alternatives “relief” or
“corrective treatment,” for there were sheep and goats in those days,
then “preventive treatment” and now “adjustment.”
Rehabilitation and adjustment are far more delicate and responsible
matters than mere relief or even “preventive treatment” and we find
social workers warning each other that “life cannot be administered by
definite rules and regulations and that wisdom to deal with a man’s
difficulties comes only through some knowledge of his life and habits
as a whole and that to treat a separate episode is almost sure to
invite blundering.”[23] The excuse for quoting so obvious a statement
is that former practice actually required it to be made. Philanthropy
took little cognizance of its supposed beneficiaries’ “life and habits
as a whole.” Such a feat of synthetic judgment cannot of course be
more than roughly approximated. It has, however, proved possible to
develop a technique of inquiry, analysis, interpretation and direct
or indirect remedial action which is known as social case work and
can be made the subject of systematic instruction in the schools for
training social workers. And within the last six years has come Miss
Richmond’s book with the suggestive title, “Social Diagnosis,” to give
a description of simple charity availing itself of the means suggested
by an age of scientific experiment and so justifying the expression,
“scientific charity,” which, unexplained, sounds so incongruous. The