ABSTRACT
In this chapter, any attempt to give a systematic description in uniform scale of philanthropic agencies of every kind is frankly abandoned in favour of a programme more modest but, it may be hoped, as fruitful. The chapter begins with a grouping of voluntary social services under seventeen heads, with some leading agencies under each head named to illustrate its character. Knowledge and reason applied to social conditions by voluntary action have led to a great development of action by the State. The institutions known as residential settlements have been places where the residents might learn; many of them have been used for social surveys; many to-day act as the clinics where students of social science in the universities go for their practical experience. The endless growth of great cities which led to the settlement movement as one reaction, led at about the same time or a little earlier to another reaction, in defence of urban and rural amenities.
