Page:Our Common Land (and other short essays).djvu/53

This page has been validated.
DISTRICT VISITING.
41

strengthen one another; and though I could not possibly find time to deal with difficulties in detail, I might show, or get shown, what plans have been found useful in places which I know. I might help, too, a little about finding employment. I hear of a good many situations of an exceptional kind, and difficult to fill up suitably, and notice of such vacancies I might send on to secretaries, who could find among their visitors someone who would care to spend thought and time in fitting into an exceptional place the person best adapted for it. The large demands for labour are, I believe, best dealt with by advertisement or registry; but there is not any more valuable way of helping individuals than by fitting them in where they are wanted, in ways that are not possible except to those who have personal knowledge of candidates. Mere routine notices might thus meet great human needs.

I have spoken throughout this paper of outward means and appliances; I have referred