health conditions among colored children in this ward is that the infant mortality for Negroes is much lower than that for whites. The average infant mortality rate for Negroes in this ward, over the nine-year period from 1914 to 1922, was 123.6, while for whites it was 155.3. This is a difference in favor of Negro infants of 31.7. These figures are taken from the annual reports of the Philadelphia bureau of health for the years 1914 to 1922. Attention was called to them first in a Survey of Health of Negro Babies, just issued by the Whittier Center.

In conclusion, may I state that I see great reason to be optimistic about the future of the health of Negro children. Economic conditions, and consequently the home life, of the Negro is improving, and experience has shown that when the Negro child is born in a home enjoying these conditions he has as much chance to live as any other child.

IV. THE FAMILY

FAMILY SOCIAL WORK

Frank J. Bruno, General Secretary, Family Welfare

Association, Minneapolis

Judge Parker, speaking before the United States Chamber of Commerce recently on business ethics, made the interesting distinction between economic function and economic motive. He pointed out that economic activities have reasons for their performance—they serve a useful purpose, but that the motives which lead them to engage in these activities may be quite different in their nature. Advertising has both an economic function and an economic motive. The function is to facilitate distribution; the motive which leads to advertising is gain. Obviously, these two may not coincide. When they do not, the economic function may be temporarily obscured or even defeated. It is worth while to pursue Judge Parker's distinction a little farther. The economic function of trade is, I suppose, to furnish goods; the economic motive to trade is profit. It is quite conceivable that the motive may under certain circumstances not only fail to "furnish goods," but actually hinder the process of furnishing them. On the other hand there is something inexorable about real economic functions. Sooner or later they win out because of their inherent fitness to living, but a conflict between motive and function, before function has won out, produces suffering and economic maladjustment. One has only to look about him at economic activities, keeping in mind that economic function is to furnish goods and economic motive is profit, to recognize that these two forces-function and motive-are in a state of what my economics teacher used to call movable equilibrium, ever changing, ever attempting to adjust themselves to each other, yet always in conflict, and in that conflict producing some disastrous consequences. One of the words popular not so long ago in social work-maladjustment-is significant of this economic conflict. Of course this explanation is simpler than the facts. For instance, economic processes are cooperative. The motives of all those engaged in the process may not be identical; occasionally they are opposed. Nor do the same groups always have the same motives. In production, the motive of the employer leads him to crowd for greater production; of the employed to limit production. In distribution, the parties exchange places. Yet in this double conflict and inversion of position caused by changing motives, the economic function remains the same. And I suppose it could be shown that as motives led the participants in the

economic processes to vary from the requirements of economic function, there was economic waste, and-what is more important to us-somebody suffered.

When we transfer this consideration to our own special field, that of social relations, a somewhat more careful analysis must be attempted. It is also true that we are probably on not quite so certain ground, as the general science of sociology has not been so successful in defining its concepts as the special social science of economics has been.

Social case work must assume as its major responsibility the task of determining whether men are successfully meeting the demands of the functions they are called upon as social beings to perform, and to aid them to a more successful participation when they have failed. (Success and failure are, of course, relative terms.) Social functions, however, do not exist in the abstract, however convenient it may be to discuss them as if they did. An individual as a social being enters into certain relationships with others; he participates in joint activities with other individuals. For purposes of clarity these joint activities may be called social institutions. Illustrations of them are trade (which we have discussed above and which is a social institution, although for purposes of special treatment it has been segregated into a science by itself, economics), the state (which is similarly treated in political science), the church, the family, the school, the community, etc. As a social being, one is to be judged by the success with which he participates in the activities of one or more of these social institutions.

Again, each of these institutions has a function, or more accurately, functions, and in addition, individuals are induced to participate in these social institutions by a variety of motives which may or may not lead the individual to act in harmony with the function of the institution. It should be said here that it is not necessary that the motive which leads to participation should make the individual conscious of the function of the institution. In fact, a great deal of successful functioning in social institutions is secured by wholly irrelevant motives: fears, taboos, customs, superstitions, public opinion.

One of the causes of the crises in social institutions today, and one which accounts for the rise of social work, is that the automatically acting motives which the long history of the race selected into its behavior for their survival values, without the conscious and intelligent cooperation of individuals, are gradually breaking down in the destruction of the simpler homogeneous communities of our ancestors. We are laboriously striving to substitute intelligent and purposed motivation for these older customs; but because we know so little of the real function of social institutions and of the way by which the individual may successfully participate in them, our progress is slow, halting, and with many uncovered spots. There is a thoroughness in natural selection, even if it is slow and tremendously costly, which intelligent selection does not, at present, approximate. There are so many and unexpected factors. This is even true in the physical realm. We breed a bulldog for certain qualities, and discover he is

highly susceptible to pneumonia. It does not make much difference in a bulldog, but in the institution of the community we find that drinking alcoholic liquors has certain serious consequences in our complicated society, and we use the power of the state to ban it. Instantly a crop of socially injurious behaviors springs up unexpectedly. Or, in a less debatable field, economics, we introduce the factory system into the institution of trade, aimed greatly to increase productivity. And it does. But look at what it has brought with it of social problems in the last hundred and fifty years. A great deal of legislation during all that time has been directed toward correcting those unexpected results of modifying a social institution. On the other hand, sometimes one gets singularly complete results from such intelligent attempts to create a new social control. Ten years ago, in Minnesota, it was very common for a deserting or nonsupporting husband to say that no one could compel him to support his family. No one says it now. A few well-thought-out laws, rigorously enforced, have taught such men that the state has such power.

The dilemma of the thoughtful student and worker in the field of social relations is that he cannot rest inactive while much of the social organism is losing its roots in custom and tradition, nor can he change its bases, or the methods of enforcing its requirements without danger of paying a high price in dislocation elsewhere.

As this is not a paper on social reform but on social case work I merely will add dogmatically that the only present solution is to adopt a tentative attitude, both with regard to what are the successful functionings of social institutions, and how men can be best induced to approximate them as they change their bases of action from automatic habits enforced by customs to intelligently directed behavior.

The social institution in which we are interested is the family. This does not mean that in our social case work we do not or should not consider the members of the family in their relationships to other social institutions. If we give special emphasis to the institution of the family it is because either no one else is doing so in the field of social effort, or because its primary nature forces us to take it into special consideration as we treat an individual as a social being. However it may be, the family is the social institution of primary interest to us.

It would be an interesting task to list what has been said regarding the function of the family. May I be dogmatic and say, for the sake of brevity, the family is a social institution primarily. Biologically it is not necessary. Economically it has serious disadvantages-for the woman at least-in spite of the popular adage that two can live more cheaply than one. For the permanent monogamous family there is little need in hygiene, psychiatry, or psychology. The institution of the monogamous family has been selected into our psychosocial environment because of its social survival value when tested by society's need to preserve its gains-its social heritage. The function of the family may therefore be described as the vehicle for the transference of social heritage from

one generation to its successor. The first chapter of Graham Wallas' Our Social Heritage dramatically symbolizes the content of social heritage. It is enough to remind you that it consists of all the customs, institutions, skills, learning, and culture of the race. If each generation had to learn it anew, there could be no social, although there might be biological, process. We should be in about the same status as the animals, with only an inelastic and sharply limited instinct to guide us. The biologists of the last century pointed out how the greatly lengthened period of childhood of the human young permitted an extent of time for training possessed by no other animal. That, of course, is true, but the more inclusive fact they did not point out: that there must be a method for insuring this training on which the continuity of civilization depended. As you stop to consider it, you can see that the family is as perfectly fitted to fulfil that function as any conceivable social contrivance. We know now that the plastic mind of the child is molded by the attitude of the adults about it, that affection toward it plays a larger part in developing its own self-integration and sense of selfrespect. This point is so well known that it is not necessary to elaborate it. What is not so generally recognized is the unique manner in which the institution of the monogamous family fits this need. You remember Miss Byington's definition of a family-as good a definition as I know-the affection of a man for a woman, of a woman for a man, and of them both for their children. Children born into such a relationship have the highest probability of receiving whatever their parents-the representatives of the previous generation-have to transfer to them. No external urging will ordinarily be necessary; on the contrary, the strongest possible wish of the parents is to give all they can to their children. If such transference costs high in effort, if the adults must suffer pain and spend resource which makes a deep inroad upon them, this type of relationship gives the greatest possible assurance that the price will be paid. It could also be shown that not only content but kind of heritage is assured by this relationship of deep and lasting affection. Mrs. Sheffield, at one of these conferences, pointed out this aspect of the situation when she said that the mother is the priestess of the family, interpreting to the child the mysteries of life-handing down to it all that her predecessors had found valuable in facing the dread, unanswerable question which life presents-of hope, of faith, of devotion, of reverence. On the other hand, the father is the interpreter of the great world outside the home. While of course the family is not the only institution which insures this transference of the gains of civilization to each new generation—as school, church, and community at least have valuable parts to play in this task-yet its place is unique among them as, for the first years, it is the child's only source, and it continues to bear an especially close relationship even after it begins to be influenced by these other institutions.

When we compare this quite clearly defined function of the family with the motives which lead to participation in the institution, the source of much serious conflict is at once apparent. Affection, passion, economic support, eco