The Subtle Problems of Charity

Book excerpt: The Subtle Problems of Charity by Jane Addams is about the intricacies of caregiving work and the complications of helping others. Excerpt: "We find in ourselves the longing for a wider union than that of family or class, and we say that we have come to include all men in our hopes, but we fail to realize that all men are hoping, and are part of the same movement of which we are a part. Many of the difficulties in philanthropy come from an unconscious division of the world into the philanthropists and those to be helped. It is all assumption of two classes, and against this class assumption our democratic training revolts as soon as we begin to act upon it."