Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/150

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136 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The author does not hope very much from cooperation nor from profit-sharing. " What the laborer really wants is not profits as a capitalist, but a greater share of the profits of industry as part of his own wages." The income on capital as such is at too low a rate to excite hope. The main reliance is upon increase of wages, and to secure this the best method is some form of collective bargaining, regulated but not repressed by law. C. R. HENDERSON.

TJu Poor in Great Cities. By ROBERT A. WOODS, JACOB A. Rus and others. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895. Pp. 400.

THE note of this work is struck in the Introduction. "Awakening is not needed. Every thinking man has thoughts upon this matter. And along with this realization has come practical experiment, in many places and on an immense scale, toward a solution." The chapters have been written by people who shared in these experiments and who wrote as direct observers and eyewitnesses. There is no second-hand description here, and yet the facts presented are connected by a phi- losophy of life. There is no attempt at producing a momentary sensa- tion.

Mr. Robert A. Woods writes upon the "Social Awakening in London," which he has so carefully studied. Rev. William T. Elsing describes the tenement-house life of New York with the fidelity of one who, as a city missionary, has made himself a part of the life. Mr. Jacob A. Riis tells of the "Children of the Poor." Mr. Willard Parsons, manager of enterprises of the fresh air fund, gives a history of this form of beneficence and explains methods and results. Boys' clubs in New York are carefully treated by Mr. E. J. Wendell. Presi- dent Tucker opens the principles of the social settlement in a phil- osophic treatment of the Andover House in Boston. Mr. Joseph Kirkland has a brief sketch of some phases of charity work in Chi- cago. Conditions of the poor in London, Paris, Naples and New York are discussed by Mr. Spearman, Mr. Mario, Mr. Oscar Craig, and Mr. Ernest Flagg.

There is not much statistical treatment. The articles were prepared for a popular audience and originally contributed to Scribner's Maga- zine. But the scientific spirit of downright thoroughness is manifest in nearly every chapter. The practical suggestions of reform are