Suggestions for social helpfulness

Front matter

SUGOESTSONS FOR -SOCIAL HELPFULNESS

BY REV. D.J. FLEMING

V NATESAN e? CO.

XXV. Power for Service i

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I. INTRODUCTION ... ... ... 1

The object of this book. The method of learning

by doing. Some assumptions. Definition of “ Social Service.” Sympathies cultivated. Kealization of stewardship. The effect of service on self. Experience must precede appreciation. Latent talent. A plea for specialization.

Need of actual experience. India must be self-

educated.

1. Home Education.

Where to begin. How to make home education practical. Spirit in which it is to be done. Some reports. Raising the purdah. Work beyond one’s home.

2. Visiting and stimidating village schools. Possibilities. A student experience.

3. Assisting in village schools.

4. General Encouragement of Education. , Student efforts. Miscellaneous ways of encouraging education.

5. Helping to start village schools.

Students’ efforts. How one school was started. Small beginnings.

6. Schools for the Depressed Classes.

The obligation of educating the depressed classes. A type of day school. A simpler type. The teaching

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of cleanliness and good manners. A type of night school. How to get students.

7. Girls' Schools.

Widow teachers. Male teachers. Courses. Encouragement. Cost. Household education. The demand. Prizes.

8. Night Schools.

The need. Funds. Place. Staff. Time. Encouragement. A simpler type. How to get students. Volunteers versus paid workers. What students have done. Another example.

III. READING TO THE ILLITERATE ... 32

How and where. What students have done.

IV. LOAN LIBRARIES ... ... 35

Private loa,n libraries. Actual student attempts.

How one library was started. A resolve.

V. LANTERN LECTURES ... ... 39

Opportunities and difficulties. A student judgment. VI. ESCORTING YOUNGER STUDENTS TO THE

MUSEUM, MILLS, FACTORIES, ETC. ... 42

VII. ENCOURAGING THE SPIRIT OF PLAY ... 45

Belief in playgrounds in America. Their growing recognition. Belief in play in England. The value of games. Encouragement from History. The need. Their need even in villages. What can be done. Work in Madras. Playgrounds in Calcutta. Helping the spirit of play in Orphanages. Why College students are needed to help. Meaning of “ Directed Play.” The kind of student needed. A place for play. Attending a school playground.

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VIII. ENCOURAGING SANITATION ... 56

A campaign of education needed. How this popular education can be given. A student quinine club. Quinine distribution. A student effort at preserving the water-supply. Student help in Plague. Overcoming obstacles. Student sanitary work in Srinagar. Plague relief in Poona. Sources of information. Kind of information needed by workers. Other suggestions. Government publications.

• IX. HELPING THE SICK AND AFFLICTED ... 66

Use of simple medicines. Examples of such help by students. St. John’s Ambulance Association. Where its classes have been started. “ Little Brothers of the Poor.” Visiting hospitals. Fresh air for hospital patients. Escorting neglected cases to a hospital. Hospital extension work. Help in national calamities. Help in special cases. Hydrophobia. Free aid to poor patients. Information for aiding consumptives. The Consumptives’ Home, Dharampur. Help for the Blind. Help for Deaf-mutes.

X. TRANSLATION ... ... ... 80

The responsibility of educated men. What can be

done. Some practical suggestions. Hints on translation by Rev. E. M. Wherry, D. D., and Canon H. U. Weitbrecht, Ph. D.

XI. THE LEAGUE OF THE GOLDEN PEN ... 88

Its inspirer. Its object. The appreciation of letters;

Letters always welcomed. Letters to children. Letters of thanks. Of praise. To near relatives. The fruitage of letters. A means of influence. No organization.

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XIL WORK FOR THE DEPRESSED CLASSES. 95 The range of brotherhood. Entering on brotherhood. A personal question. Zeal for one’s sub-caste not enough. A resolve. Practical measures. Education not pauperizing. Education constructive. Formation of clubs. Sanitation. Agitation. Further practical suggestions.

XIII. SERVICE TO PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS ... 104

Need of honorary help. Help to an Orphanage.

Helping by physical labour. Singing Deputations.

XIV. PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS 109 Public opinion needed. India’s part in the protection of animals. An Imperial Indian Society. What can be done by local societies. The law. Procedure. Kinds of offences. Illustrations of what can be done. Work at Calcutta. At Srinagar.

XV. TOWN AND VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT ... 119

A statement of possibilities.

XVI. SOME SOCIAL DUTIES OF HOSTEL STUDENTS 122 1. To uphold and to contribute to an ennobling and healthy public opinion. 2. To place emphasis on that which supplements rather than on what contradicts one’s own life. 3. To create an atmosphere of consideration of those with whom one lives.

XVII. TEMPERANCE ... ... 127

Literature on the Question. Elevating Life Conditions. Educating the Individual. Various ways of working for Temperance. Medal Contests. Temperance Song Contests. Some things done by students for Temperance.

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XVIII. THE PLACE OF SMALL CLUBS OR SOCIETIES. 133 Their value. Their dangers. A model object. Student efforts. Another attempt. A Knight Errant Society. A Waif and Stray Society. The Seva Sadan. XIX. TRAVELLERS’ AID ... ... 140

XX. SOME SUGGESTIONS ON “ SOCIAL STUDY ”

FOR STUDENT GROUPS ... ... 142

Social study. The research attitude. Thinking for yourself. Becoming specialists. Necessity of investigation. STUDY-OUTLINES : —

1. How Society cares for itself.

2. The Bad Citizenship of Good Men.

3. Libraries and Beading Booms.

4. Night Schools. The Bedemption of Idle Hours.

5. Philanthropic Agencies.

6. Modern Conceptions of Charity.

7. The Daily Income of Beggars.

8. Temperance.

9. India’s Undeveloped Besources. A Study of

the Depressed Classes.

10. How the Other Half Lives.

11. The Moral Failure of my City.

12. Fighting the Death Bate.

13. Cruelty to Animals.

14. An Investigation of the Forces of Moral Uplift ^ of my City. Assignments by papers. Assignments by subjects. Value of small circles. The aim of the study. The selection of a leader. Duties of a leader. The stimulation of thought. Personal study. Of India’s past.

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The benefit of such study. The attitude in

study,

XXI. SERVICE BY BEING ... ... 1 6S

Mere work not enough. The need of character.

Service the expression of personality. The resulting demands.

XXII, SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS... 167 A Teacher’s opportunity. Preparations for social duty

a conscious ideal. Suggestions of things worth doing. XXIII. SOCIAL HELPFULNESS AS AN

EXPRESSION OF RELIGION ... 173

Keal religion is expressed in conduct. The relation to religion of the call to service. Religions tested by their social fruitage. The two ends in religious culture. Known by your expression. Religion is a life to be lived. A personal question. Expression necessary to the deepening and perpetuating of religious feeling.

XXIV. SERVICE THROUGH PRAYER ... 179

The availability of God. Something more than

work needed. One’s attitude, A remarkable statement. Not mere hyperbole. Some subjects for prayer.

XXV. POWER FOR SERVICE ... ... 200

The true measure of a man. The basis of a

thorough-going hope. The human way. Through aspiration. Through habitual response. No hope in ourselves. Opening the door to God. Inspiration needed. The source of power. How the life of service is sustained. Abiding in “ The Vine.”

INTEODUCTION.

THK OBJECT OF THIS BOOK.

Service sliould be the overflow of an abundant life. Tts forms and expression will be as richly varied as that life itself. No “ Manual ” then can catalogue the possibilities nor define the range of service. But such a book can be suggestive — can start new veins of thought and activity in those who have the great essential — a quickening touch with the Source of Life. It is hoped that this book may prove suggestive of some of the avenues of helpfulness that open out on every side to the heart-willing man, and that it may be a help in training students to enter intelligently into conscious and co-operative work of bringing about a better society. It is written with the conviction that intelligent and effective community life is one of the real aims of education ; that even while a student, eacli man should make a beginning in understanding the opportunities and responsibilities of citizenship ; and that guided attempts at definite practical helpfulness are the necessary conditions from which may grow that purposeful thinking and that larger useful-

SUGGESTIONS FOR SOCIAL HELPFULNESS.

ness which should characterize a student’s later life. The aim of this book, then, is to awaken the desire to be helpful; to suggest channels along which that desire may realize itself in action ; to inculcate a sense of responsibility ; and to make possible the forming of conscious ideals through the practice of them.

THE METHOD.

We have given a large place throughout to a statement by students of tbeir attempts at service — humble though they may be — believing that there is more stimulus in an account of things actually done, than in a mere statement of the theoretical value of education through social helpfulness. We have drawn freely from any source that bid fair to offer really practical suggestions ; for experience has shown that even where hearts are willing, directions for service must be detailed if much is to be accomplished.

LEARNING BY DOING.

Every one now recognizes that a student makes much better progress by handling materials and doing things, than by merely reading about them. Every University in India is insisting, as never before, on wellequipped laboratories ; and in most of the Provinces, every student of science has to do more or less practical work. Teachers are convinced that a student cannot understand specific heat until he has weighed out some metal, and by the use of thermometer and calorimeter has found it for himself. They feel that he cannot know hydrogen from the pages of a book, but must actually discover its properties himself. This