some such arrangement as Professor Tufts suggests, when each school of social work will have, in connection with it, a social agency for field work purposes, the agencies will have to continue to bear this burden, at least for the present, and the schools must recognize that they themselves have some responsibility in this connection. Time permits mention only of one additional problem with regard to the student body which should be the common concern of schools and agencies and on which there has been very little coordinate thinking thus far. I am referring to the problem of recruiting. Schools of social work have not, as a rule, made any very conscious efforts at general recruiting. Of course they advertise in the journals, they send out their catalogues, etc. But these attempts reach only those who already know something of social work, and I know from experience that comparatively few students in the undergraduate courses are aware of the possibilities of professional social work. Thus far, recruiting has been left almost entirely to the social agencies. These cannot be expected to recruit for the schools. They must keep their own needs in mind first. The result is that the worth-while students are either attracted to other fields or they are recruited by the agencies for the field and they enter the field of social work without training. The effects of this are so well known that I need say little more. It seems to me that here is another problem in which the schools and agencies are jointly interested. Perhaps this problem should be studied by a joint committee of the American Association of Social Workers and the Association of Professional Schools. But whatever the method of study may be and regardless of how soon it may be undertaken, some action is necessary to eliminate the questionable practice of competition between schools and agencies which is almost universally true just now. The teaching material.-The problem of adequate teaching material is a very serious one, as everyone who has tried to teach courses in social work well knows. In courses on family case work, the problem of securing the right kind of cases for teaching purposes is an extremely difficult one. Case records are frequently kept in such fashion as to be unsuitable for teaching purposes. They frequently do not contain the most vital aspects of the case work process. Here the aim of the agency and the need of the school are not necessarily the same. The agency wants a record of its work for purposes of control, self-protection, easy transition in case of turnover of workers, continuity of procedure, etc. The school, however, is interested in records from quite a different point of view. It is therefore not to be wondered at that what may be good case records, so far as the immediate purpose of the agency is concerned, may not be good case records for teaching material from the standpoint of the school. Furthermore, methods in social work today are but in the beginning of their development. Methods used in social agencies only a year or two ago may not be at all acceptable to even the same agencies today. Standards of work in one agency may be thoroughly unacceptable to another agency, and may be unacceptable : ར 3 also to the school. How is the fluidity in social work-which Professor Tufts considers one of the saving graces of a profession, and which all of us recognize as vital to the life and contribution of social work-how is this fluidity to be maintained? Certainly not by teaching students on the basis of material gathered years ago. One student who applied for admission to our school told me that in a course on case work they were using case records ten and fifteen years old. I believe that most of us at all familiar with the development of family case work in the last five or ten years would unhesitatingly say that such case records as this student studied should not be presented even from the standpoint of how not to do case work. The same is true also of the other fields of social work. There is, however, the practical problem of how teaching material is to be obtained, edited, and at the same time remain of current value. This is another problem on which common thinking between the schools and agencies is necessary. Perhaps the suggestion previously made, that faculties of schools should include people who are engaged in the actual processes of social work, would be helpful in the solution of these problems. These are but a few suggestions of common problems which should lay the basis for a proper relation between social agencies and schools of social work. These are problems which they have in common, and which should be solved, not by one, but by both of these groups for the benefit of social work. There are many more problems which are troubling social agencies and schools of social work regarding relationship between them. However, no exhaustive treatment of these problems can be made in the confines of a thirty-minute paper. When the subject was first suggested to me I thought of sending out a questionnaire to the schools of social work, asking them to list the problems of relationship which have been troubling them. Further thought convinced me that unless the agencies, too, were included in such a questionnaire, the material gathered would be one-sided and would be neither conclusive nor helpful. To include also the social agencies would have been a task which would require much more time than was allowed for the presentation of this subject. Moreover, it did not seem to me that the preliminary thinking on these matters had been done which would justify sending out a questionnaire at this time. Some preliminary ground work would have to be laid in some such fashion as the discussions this morning, and in the sessions which are to follow, to prepare the ground for intensive and purposive thinking. Therefore, I decided to draw upon my own experiences as an executive of a social agency, where I was concerned with the problem of training from the standpoint of the agency, and upon my experiences at present in the organizing of a course of study for the training of social workers, which requires the point of view of the schools of social work, in order to present the problem here so as to offer some suggestions for further study and thought. The incompleteness of my treatment is, of course, obvious. The subject needs a great deal of further study, and I hope that we may have a symposium next year which will treat some of the subjects suggested, and others which can be readily supplied, much more exhaustively than has been possible for me. SUPPORT AND INTERPRETATION OF PROFESSIONAL James F. Jackson, Associated Charities, Cleveland The foundation of a new profession must be laid by those who would practice the profession. Those who have the vision to see beyond the immediate necessity and the will to serve to the utmost must assume and carry the sibility. Of course, a new profession can be established only when it can be demonstrated that those who would practice can meet a human need. If there is a real service to be performed and the efforts put forth relate themselves effectively to what is true in the situation, then is it possible, and then only, that the profession may slowly evolve. The elemental principles of the profession must rest upon truth. The application of these principles must come through human devotion and intelligent service. Some group must make the sacrifice and endure the suffering essential to the birth of the profession. The evolving profession of social work naturally depends upon the social worker, his sponsors, and instructors. Other people would seldom recognize the establishment of this new profession as the best way to meet elemental social problems. Probably this is because people are interested in what they believe concerns them. Few people recognize underlying social problems in the events of every-day life. They regard these events emotionally rather than philosophically. Social maladjustments are not thought of as such; rather, these situations are thought of as results of the ill-doing or bad judgment of those who suffer, or they are thought of as inevitable ills of life which these sufferers must expect to endure. Those who suffer are accounted "out of luck." The average man on the street pats himself on the back for generous impulse when he expresses concern to the degree of saying "too bad," "tough luck," or the like. If the situation is too severe, the man on the street would have someone apply a panacea to the sufferer and a bromide to the man, adding, perhaps, "it takes all sorts of people to make a world," accounts himself a "good fellow," and goes his way. But there must be standards for social work even as there are standards for the practice of medicine to meet physical needs, or the profession of law to meet the requirements of a complex social and economic life. Now, who are the people to establish the standards for social work? They are those who, through observation and concern, see in social maladjustments the natural results of human frailties and of "man's inhumanity to man," ར་ but who, at the same time, see a way out. These concerned people are the only ones upon whom civilization can rely to direct productive thought to the establishment of a profession and of standards for that profession. Certainly no one, either as a matter of self-protection or as an idealist, has more reason to discover and to interpret professional requirements for social work, and to secure support therefor, than has the executive of a social service agency. He thus discovers, interprets, and secures support or he cannot succeed. He recognizes the need of standards and of their gradually increasing acceptance or a vital link is weak in his chain of usefulness. In other words, the executive who fails to recognize such need is a bar to human progress. He bars human progress even though he may be kindly and honest and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He may be able, he may be good, but he is good for little or nothing. What then are standard professional requirements and, in particular, why should social agency executives or others support them? Professional requirements are of two related types: First, those which in essence should precede training and social experience, and second, those requirements which are fulfilled through training in a professional school or in a modern social work organization, or by both methods combined. He who wishes to qualify as a social worker invariably should possess good health, a fairly well-trained mind, adaptability, and a genuine love of people. In these days when humanitarians are pressing for the development of social work as a profession, it is essential that each of these fundamental requirements be met. The social worker needs, first, health, mental and physical, because this work makes heavy demands upon its followers; second, a trained mind, to weigh and properly relate all evidence-in fact, such a mind is required to recognize the points concerning which evidence is essential, and its relative importance; third, adaptability, because absolutely all sorts of people must be met and effectually dealt with, both in diagnosis and in treatment; fourth, love of people as people, because helpful service is impossible without it: love of people, regardless of age, race, nationality, sex, or other classification. In this state of development these seem to be the minimum initial requirements for a social worker. There should be but one standard for judging those entering social work without professional training or experience and for those with social experience but no training. Nevertheless, full recognition should be given for all experience and training in other activities which will help in doing social work, for example, ability to meet, to understand, to deal with people-however acquired. There should be one professional standard and, as a corollary, one salary standard for men and for women. Salary exceptions should be only for valid reason affecting achievement. The technical preparation must include lectures and supervised field work, the classroom, and the laboratory. Moreover, there must be a most intimate correlation between classroom instruction and supervised field work in order to make either effective. Two years are required to enable a trainee to meet professional requirements, although the lecture work may be centered mainly in one year. But in lecture and laboratory the human element must dominate. Always people who are in severe distress or maladjustment are being considered. "Problems" or "clients," not just "cases," are the subjects under consideration. Ministration and service, not study, dominate. One studies, one acquires knowledge and facility, but he acquires knowledge and facility as an incident to service. One does not serve as an incident to study. Those who succeed have the attitude of the ideal doctor, lawyer, or minister, not the acquisitive attitude of the student as such. The well-being of the particular client or the group of clients, not the skill of the trainee, should dominate. The trainee exists for the client, not the client for the trainee. Except a grain of wheat fall in the ground and die, it abideth alone, but when it falls in prepared ground and dies, it bringeth forth fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some one hundred fold. That is a good parable for the trainee to consider. Great social results have been achieved only when the social workers have centered their thoughts and actions on the relief of clients' distress, on the recovery of the clients' lost condition in life, or when attention has been centered on the prevention of distress to people who otherwise would become clients in the future, immediate or remote. Of course, all this contemplates adequate, competent instruction through a university, an accredited school, or otherwise. It contemplates capable, concerned field supervision of the trainee in an organization possessing within itself reasonable resource and equipment and possessing good working relations with other local organizations, social, religious, and civic. We should not be unmindful of a classic description of education, with "Garfield at one end of a log, and Mark Hopkins at the other." That description presents a perfectly sound principle. But usually it is applied to a trio with the emphasis on the presence of the log, while a Garfield or a Hopkins, or both, are absent. The lectures, the study, and the carefully supervised field work combine to give the trainee reasonable facility in the essentials of making friendly, effective contacts with clients and others. They develop systematic, accurate, punctual, thorough, quick methods of work and judgment as to what the facts are and what should be done with them. The trainee must learn to develop his initiative, to be open-minded and concerned as to criticism, to maintain a uniform purpose of remedying such defect as gives color to criticism. The trainee must be prepared to make each critic a subject for sound conversion to the underlying principles of social work, for "Every critic a prospective friend" is a sound objective for the social worker. The prospective social worker who begins with health, a fairly trained mind, |