What social worker has not been asked to define social work and found himself at a loss? It is easy to describe his own particular tasks but it is not easy to characterize the profession as a whole or to say why its very diverse phases are identified with one another. Why should we apply the term “social work” to hospital social service and probation, but not to nursing and interpreting, services which seem to stand in a similar relation to medicine and the courts? Definitions of social work are

The “charities directories” of New York [6] and Philadelphia [7] offer the most inclusive available lists of the various types of social work. For present purposes it will be sufficient to review them by groups. Duplications, omissions, and extraneous inclusions (all legitimate for the purposes of the directories) make the figures of agencies of each type inaccurate but they serve to show the multiplicity as well as the range of social work undertakings. In cross section no obvious, no easily di

The historical perspective which shows social work to have developed out of charity shows also that there is a close relation between that development and contemporaneous developments in other lines. We know that in every field of production, trade and business, enterprising men have lately developed practical sciences to replace the old rules of thumb, and that even in such a field as teaching there has lately appeared a derived science of pedagogy which levies on psychology and other direct sc

We have now propounded a tentative definition of social work based upon an interpretation of its development and present practices. We will not be sure of the correctness of that interpretation until we have tested the applicability of the result to the whole range of social work. Nor can we do this fairly by making our own presentation of social work. For such a test we must find some ready-made presentation which will marshal social work in all its diversity. The reports of the national confer

There are some fifteen schools for the training of social workers, [55] independent institutions or university departments. The younger among them have not followed at all closely the organization or practices of the older [56] and all work in close co-operation with local social work agencies, farming their students out with these for practice work and drawing lecturers from the agency staffs. The varied curricula of the schools seem therefore to offer direct evidence of what is considered in t

At the beginning of this study it was said that a definition of social work was in demand for practical use. We have developed a definition which seems to hold good as far as it goes. We have said that social work includes all voluntary attempts to extend benefits in response to a need, which are concerned with social relationships and which avail themselves of scientific knowledge and employ scientific methods. It remains to test whether this is sufficiently descriptive and sufficiently definit

Edward T. Devine in “Social Work” says (p. 21): “Social work, then is the sum of all the efforts made by society to ‘take up its own slack’ to provide for individuals when its established institutions fail them, to supplement those established institutions and to modify them at those points at which they have proved to be badly adapted to social needs. * * * It may be well done or badly done; according to the most enlightened system which intelligence and experience and sympathy and vision can d

A A list of the schools belonging (in 1921) to the “Association of Training Schools for Professional Social Workers,” organized 1919, President. Prof. J. E. Cutler, Western Reserve University. Boston School of Social Work, Boston. Carola Woerishoffer Graduate Department of Social Economy and Social Research, Bryn Mawr College. College of Commerce and Journalism, Ohio State University. Department of Social Work, Carnegie Institute of Technology. Department of Social Work, University of Toronto. M

Addams, Jane; Newer Ideals of Peace. Macmillan, N.Y., 1907 (2d edition 1911). Twenty Years at Hull House. Macmillan, N.Y., 1911. A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Macmillan, 1912. Bosanquet, Mrs. Bernard (Helen Denby); Rich and Poor. Macmillan, London, 1896. The Standard of Life and Other Studies. Macmillan, 1898. The Strength of the People, A Study in Social Economics. Macmillan, 1903. Cabot, Richard C., M.D.; Social Service and the Art of Healing. Moffat, Yard & Co., 1915. Carver,