ORGANISED CHARITY IN SWITZERLAND.
THE Charity Organisation Society has given expression to a sense of dissatisfaction with the desultory, haphazard Character of our benevolence, which had long been a growing one in many minds. But it is somewhat humiliating to nil English- men, who boast of being practical, to find that what we have only been talking about, and trying to do, within the last few years, has been actually done in a Swiss city for more than a century. There has been no talk about charity organisation in Bale, but since the year 1777, the Canton has possessed a Society (Gesellschaft zur Beforderung der Guten Lind Gemeinniitzigen), established on so simple and broad a basis as to afford room for the organic development of every form of benevolence, so that at the present day (or at least at the end of 1881) it can provide at once for forty-five different objects, which in practical England would have required forty-five offices, forty-five paid secretaries, forty-five separate subscription lists, and forty-five separately published yearly reports. It has over 1,700 members, over £8,000 funds, and an income of over £3,000. Its objects include the improvement of the dwellings of the labouring class, public eating-rooms, baths and washhouses (including men's and women's swimming-baths), athletics, a skating-rink, public lectures, Sunday schools for girls, choral singing, various libraries, kindergarten, infant schools, drawing and modell- ing schools, music schools, sewing schools, assistance of vari- ous kinds to clever or to poor scholars, provision for orphans, the maintenance of apprentices, help to discharged prisoners, the care of young deaf mutes, the protection of the insane, the prevention of cruelty to animals, the embellishment of the environs of Bale, a savings-bank, sick, and burial socie- ties, an asylum for the aged, the furtherance of domestic in- dustry, the providing of appliances for the relief of the sick, the maintenance of the city museum of natural history and of its medimval collection. The machinery of the Society consists, besides a Directorate (Vorstand) of nine persons, for the most part of separate Committees for the several objects, ranging from three to seventeen members ; in other cases, where particu- lar undertakings have passed out of the hands of the Society, or are simply contributed to by it, of from one to four delegates for each of such. In one or two cases, companies or societies which have sprung out of it report directly to it. For it has repeatedly happened in the history of the Society that it has served as pioneer to the State, and has seen objects taken up as of public obligation which it had originally sought to com- pass by private effort ; whilst in other cases, the work which it has initiated has either so developed itself as to require an or- ganisation of its own, or from its costliness has required this from the first. Hence, its forty-five present objects represent nearly seventy which it has had in all, although new ones are frequently added, in place of those which have passed out of its hands. In a few cases, indeed, it has had simply to give up what it had un- dertaken. In other cases, where a first attempt had failed, another has succeeded in later years. Thus, instead of the senseless, sickening, intolerable competition of charity with charity which fills the advertisement columns of the Times and the waste-paper baskets of every person who has a discoverable address, these Swiss burghers have made it a practice, for now these 106 years, to bring their benevolence to a focus, to set it to work in a manner which is at once the most practical and the most scientific, and which at the same time answers best to the spirit of true Christian fellowship. No political or religious differences have ever been suffered to exclude from its member- ship ; it has been found wide enough for men of the most various characters, sympathies, and tendencies.
The following passages from the Rules of the Society, which were adopted on Easter Day of 1777 by the seven original members, may seem to explain the largeness of its aims :- " Object of the Society.-The furtherance, encouragement, and extension of all that is good, praiseworthy, socially useful, all that can raise and increase the honour and welfare of the com- munity, the happiness of the citizen, and of mankind at large, has a right to the attention of the Society. Choice of Members. -Admission to the Society must therefore be open to every friend and fartherer of that which is good. Duties of Members. -Every member, in the same manner as he will strive for himself to make that use of his knowledge, his gifts, his position, his fortune, which he considers most conducive to the general happiness, so will he also have always this principle before his eyes in reference to the aims of this Society." The Society thus presupposes active individual benevolence as a many-sided duty, and then proceeds to make it collective. Hence, whilst it has not disdained to spend money freely on occasional com- memorative festivals (more particularly that of its centenary, in 1877), it has been able to do its quiet work without any grand yearly dinners, and, above all, without any voting machinery;
and yet it has grown almost uninterruptedly, though slowly at the first. Its income during its first year was only 2,126 francs (say, £85). After 1809, it was never under 3,000 f. ; after 1815, never under 5,000; after 1816, never under 6,000; after 1821, never under 7,000; after 1829, never under 8,000; it was over 9,000, in 1830 ; over 10,000, in 1831; over 14,000, in 1834 ; over 15,000, in 1838 ; over 34,000, in 1851; over 42,000, in 1863 ; over 47,000, in 1874. Its lowest number of members was 121, in 1784; in 1804, it was over 200 ; in 1813, over 300 ; in 1823, over 400; in 1827, over 500; in 1845, over 600; in 1853, over 700 ; in 1861, over 800 ; in 1868, over 900 ; in 1869, over 1,000 ; in 1870, over 1,100 ; in 1871, over 1,200 ; in 1872, over 1,300; in 1874, over 1,400 ; in 1876, over 1,500 ; in 1881, over 1,700, being more than three per cent. of the whole population. What is still more remarkable is that the same names remain connected with it during its century and more of existence. Its founder was one Isaac Iselin, and a Major Rudolf Iselin was its treasurer in 1882, and twenty-one Iselins are among the subscribers. A Peter Burckhardt was another of the seven original members, and three Burckhardts were members of the Directorate for 1882, besides over seventy subscribers of the name. A Jacob Sarasin was another original member, and a Sarasin-Stehlin was a director for 1882, besides ten subscribers. An Andreas Merian was another original member, and a Hoffmann-Merian was President for 1882, besides thirty-eight subscribers. Thus, out of the seven original names, four appear after the lapse of 106 years in the Directorate of the Society, and only one seems to have died out of the list of Members. There is surely something very fine in this hereditary benevolence, generation after generation devoting themselves to the further- ance of a common work. No doubt, the S. P. G. in this country and a few local charities, might afford similar instances out of their subscription lists ; but few amongst us would be disposed at the first blush to connect such fixity of purpose with Repub- lican institutions. And there is something touching to note that, although the area of the Society's operations is local, it has many members not only in other Cantons, but in foreign countries. One subscribes from Heidelberg, another from Milan, a third from Naples, two from Havre, another from Weimar, another from London, another from Troyes, another from Marseilles, another from New York, another from St. Alban's. (Be it observed that the Report gives simply a list of members, not the quota of individual benefactions.) It may, indeed, have been noticed that among the various objects of the Society there are none of a directly religious character, although the Protestant Union for Church-singing (Kirchengesangverein) reports to it, as well as the Klein-Basel Choir (probably Roman Catholic), and a delegate from the Church Choir (Kirchengesangchor, apparently a different body from the first-named). That the existence of the Society has in nowise quenched religions zeal in Bale, nor its restriction to local objects narrowed the range of Bale benevolence, is shown clearly by the coexistence in the same city of the well- known Bale Missionary Society, almost the pioneer among such institutions, and which has rendered signal services to Christen- dom. Many clergymen are members of the " Gesellschaft zur Beforderung der Guten mad Gemeinniitzigen," and it is obvious that its position is in nowise that of antagonism to the Christian faith, but rather of friendly, but wholly unsectarian, co-opera- tion with it.
It would, of course, be idle simply to- imitate such a body in this country, or even in this metropolis, this " province covered with houses," of which the Canton of Bale City would form but a fragment. The field is long since preoccupied,-the vested interests of hundreds of charities would no longer allow of the growth of a body capable of combining so many important objects as the Bale Society. But it is a question whether some inspiration might not be derived from its example. It is pos- sible to conceive of a group of friends, united, perhaps, by the influence of some precious memory, bringing together their efforts, in whatever direction, for what is right and good, and instead of trying to set up separate societies (a benevolent nobleman is reported to have said that he sometimes lay awake at nights for thinking what new Societies required to be formed), resolving themselves into Committees only, all acting in harmony with each other. What might grow out of such an attempt at co-operation in benevolence, time alone could show. But our present competition in benevolence is as odious as it is wasteful.
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