SOCIAL WORK AND THE COLLEGE: SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS

As criticism which merely demolishes the object of its attention is neither convincing nor constructive, the following plan for a vigorous Social Service Bureau may serve as a fitting last chapter to the destructive analysis that has lately appeared in these columns.

The proposed organization, operating under the auspices of Phillips Brooks House, but in a less subordinate position than the present committee, will consist of six active members--a Secretary, and an Executive Board of five. Of this number, two will be Seniors in the College and three Juniors. At the end of a given year the three Junior members will elect one of their number to serve as Secretary for the following year. The remaining two will then become the Senior members, and will elect three more new Juniors. The new members will be chosen from the ranks on those men who have engaged in social work during their Freshman and Sophomore years, and who are also, if possible, men of proved ability in other fields This machinery provides for a self-perpetuating. Executive Board of experienced workers.

In this, as in all other ideal organizations, every chance of success or failure will depend, from beginning to end, on the personnel of the staff. With interested, intelligent, sincere cooperation nothing is impossible. It cannot be too much to suppose that in every college class of eight hundred men, three with the necessary qualifications will be developed in the course of two years.

With an adequate organization suggested for the proposed Bureau, the discussion turns to a question of method and procedure. It will be the duty of the Secretary to list all those who in their registration cards offer themselves for social work and to apportion them to the five members of the Executive Board. Within the first month of the college year, a widely advertised open meeting of volunteers will be held, addressed by the highest and most stimulating authorities on social work which it is within the power of the Bureau to invite. After this meeting the members of the Executive Board will visit the men assigned to them, and after personal conferences will recommend to the Secretary that they be placed in positions for which their abilities and inclinations best fit them.

So much the present Committee has at least tried to do with occasional outstanding failures. In follow-up work however, where absolutely nothing effective is now done, the Executive Board of the proposed Bureau will tread new ground. Each member of the Executive Board will visit the men on his list at monthly intervals to make suggestions for new programs, assist in difficult situations and reassign men obviously misplaced. The vital importance of this individual work cannot be too heavily stressed. It will be supplemented in occasional general meetings of volunteers to hear visiting speakers and to engage in organized round table discussion.

This plan for a general reorganization of undergraduate social service is intended to remedy several detects in the prevailing system. First the internal composition of the Bureau prevents the break in continuity which at present takes place between the work of one year and that of the next. Second the increased personal supervision and the provision for readjustments guarantee a maximum of efficient service to the institutions to which men are sent. Third, the greater attention to the conduct of the opening meeting and the preparation of volunteers make an effort to utilize adequately the enthusiastic idealism that is the first and most vital force in the social activity of the individual student. Whether or not this plan, if it is put into effect, will succeed, will depend in the same way that all such enterprises depend, on the vigor, and intelligence, and vision of those who come to administer it. Given these three prerequisites, it provides the machinery by which undergraduate social service may be made firm, effective, and enduring.