NEW YORK
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
WM F. FELL CO PRINTERS
PHILADELPHIA
No less thoughtful a critic of men and mannersthan Joseph Conrad has remarked recently thata universal experience "is exactly the sort of thing whichis most difficult to appraise justly in the individual instance."The saying might have been made the mottoof this book, for in its pages Miss Colcord—with all theeagerness of the newer school of social workers, bentupon understanding, upon making allowances—seeksthat just appraisal to which Conrad refers. Maritalinfelicities and broken homes are not universal, fortunately,but some of the human weaknesses which leadto them are very nearly so.
To one who brings a long perspective to any themein social work, Broken Homes suggests the successivestages through which the art of social case work hasprogressed. Twenty years ago the editor of this Serieswas responsible for the following sentences in an annualreport: "One of our most difficult problems has beenhow to deal with deserted wives with children....One good woman, whose husband had left her for thesecond time more than a year ago, declared often andemphatically that she would never let him come back.We rescued her furniture from the landlord, found herwork, furnished needed relief, and befriended the children;but the drunken and lazy husband returned theother day, and is sitting in the chairs we rescued, whilehe warms his hands at the fire that we have kept burning."
The passage belongs to the first and what might betermed the "muddling along" period of dealing withfamily desertion, but the fact that boards of directorsactually were willing to print such frank statementsabout their own shortcomings was a sign that the periodwas drawing to a close.
This first stage was succeeded by a disciplinary period,in which earnest attempts were made to enact laws thatwould punish the deserter and aid in his extraditionwhenever he took refuge across a state line. Laws ofthe strictest, and these well enforced, seemed for a whilethe only possible solution.
Then gradually, with the unfolding of a philosophyand a technique of helping people in and through theirsocial relationships, a new way of dealing with thisancient and perplexing human failing was developed.This third way involved a more careful analysis ofrelationships and motives, a greater variety in approach,an increased flexibility in treatment, a new faith, perhaps,in the re-creative powers latent in human nature.But it is unnecessary to enlarge upon a point of viewwhich these pages admirably illustrate. Desertion lawscontinue to serve a definite purpose, as Miss Colcordmakes clear, but no longer are they either the first or thesecond resort of the skilful probation officer, family caseworker, or child protective agent.
Just after the Russell Sage Foundation published atreatise on Social Diagnosis two years ago, a number ofletters came to the author urging that a volume on thetreatment of social maladjustments in individual casesfollow. But this second subject is not yet ready for thelarge general treatise. A topic so new as social casetreatment must be developed aspect by aspect, preferablyin smal