Robert Hunter, the head worker of the settlement, who is in direct charge of the house at Eldridge and Rivington streets, gave an account of the work of the institution, and after him Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, was introduced as the most prominent settlement worker in this country. She received a notable greeting. She said in part:
"Any list of the achievements of Settlements must be pitifully meager when compared with the needs to be met. Merely to build up a great institution is not the object for there is a natural and proper distrust of institutionalism. The real object is to get into personal relations with those who need our help and in spite of their needs we shall find that there is in their lives a pathos, dignity and worth which is the same as that of those more pleasantly situated.
"In our work at Hull House we have steadily grown in tolerance until we have sometimes had to ask ourselves if we were not in danger of going too far and of reaching that optimism which would accept everything as good. Yet we are convinced that there is a latent force, a creative power in the people with whom we deal which will come out if it only have a chance.
Miss Addams said that she could not entirely accept the motto, "Not alms, but a friend," as it was frequently necessary to give alms. It was work and association that was the great thing, however, and she protested against a tendency frequently shown to turn a particular branch of work over to the city as soon as it becomes the most promising.
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