dren's Aid Society, for example, inquires about Mrs. Mary Jones, and is informed that the North End Mission 'inquired' in January, 1910, the S. P. C. C. in December, 1910, and the Social Service Department of the Massachusetts General Hospital in March, 1911. The Children's Aid Society then calls up, or, better still, personally interviews, all these agencies, and secures directly from them what data they have about Mrs. Jones and the story of their relations with her. Experience has indicated that it is wiser to have no information in regard to the family pass through the office of the Exchange; that it should give only the names of interested societies."

It will be noted that agencies no longer "register" but “inquire,” thus placing the emphasis on the more important part of the process. No one not directly and disinterestedly concerned, no one who cannot prove that social betterment is his aim, should be entitled to even the colorless data that the Exchange can supply. Its facts should be carefully guarded from those who might put them to other uses, such as installment collectors or other creditors. Instead of invading privacy, the Exchange assures it. Where there is no such aid to co-operation, or where agencies whose lines may cross refuse to make systematic inquiry of an Exchange already established, it becomes necessary, in order to be sure that effort is not being duplicated and that useful insights are not lost, to inquire directly of each agency that might have known a given client. Each such repetition of a client's name to an agency that does not know him is rendered unnecessary by the existence of an Exchange in which all the social agencies are participants. supposed persons of that name being different are too numerous to allow us to consider the common mark as having appreciable probative value. But these chances may be diminished by adding other common circumstances going to form the common mark. Add, for instance, another name circumstance, as that the name of each supposed person was John Barebones Bonaparte Smith; here the chances of there being two persons of that name, in any district, however large, are instantly reduced to a minimum. Or, add a circumstance of locality,-for example, that each of the supposed persons lived in a particular village, or in a particular block of a certain street, or in a particular house; here, again, the chances are reduced in varying degrees in each instance. Or, add a circumstance of family,—for example, that each of the persons had seven sons and five daughters, or that each had a wife named Mary Elizabeth and three daughters named Flora, Delia, and Stella; here the chances are again reduced in varying degrees, in proportion to the probable number of persons who would possess this composite mark. In every instance, the process depends upon the same principle-the extent to which the common mark is capable of being associated, in human experience, with more than one object."

In a small city where the Confidential Exchange is still a new thing, a worker in a family agency reports that she must also call up the overseer of the poor about each new application to her office, because he does not use the Exchange. She has found it necessary to communicate besides with a missionary who is often working in an unrelated way with the same families. The confidential character of the work of the family agency, the overseer, and the missionary would have been conserved if all three had used the Exchange, for then no client's name need have been mentioned to an agency not already acquainted with him.

The reason most often given by a social agency for refusing to use the Exchange is that its relations with its clients are too confidential. As just shown, this objection is based upon a misapprehension. Nor does an agreement to make systematic inquiry imply obligation to inquire in every single instance. There may be exceptional cases in which no inquiry need be made or should be made, though these exceptions will not be many after the true nature and value of the Exchange have been made apparent by its frequent use.

It will of course be understood that the Exchange is not confined to an indexing of the recipients of material relief. It is a key to the knowledge and activities of those who have rendered or are rendering social service in any form, and its usefulness is being rapidly extended far beyond the boundaries of relief societies and other charitable agencies.

Both of these objections—that their work is confidential and that it is not relief-have heretofore held back many of the social settlements from making inquiry. In so far as their work is with a whole neighborhood, inquiry of the Exchange is not practicable, of course, but case work of any kind-social betterment work, that is, with individuals—is helped by the Exchange, whether it radiates from a settlement, a church, or a private family as its center. "To the casual onlooker," says Miss Byington, "the Confidential Exchange, with its files of cards, must seem to embody the maximum of red tape with the minimum of 'charity.' We must kindle his imagination, that he may see as we do that behind the machinery is a constructive force; that the Exchange is not a device for preventing overlapping of relief, that it is not a benevolent detective agency, but that it does conserve and render

1 See The Confidential Exchange, p. 13.

more efficient our service to an important section of the community."

III. THE USE OF EXCHANGE DATA

The old adage about bringing a horse to water has been illustrated in the course of our case reading by the very perfunctory use made of the Exchange by some of the agencies studied. It is necessary to inquire of the Exchange before acting instead of after, if the clues suggested by its reports are to be of any real service. And there is no particular merit in consulting the Exchange, even with great promptness, if the clues which it furnishes are not intelligently followed up.

It is true that, in a city in which the Exchange is well established and widely used, the clues furnished are sometimes bewilderingly many; some of them may yield little of value; and always the time element makes necessary an intelligent choice of the order in which social agency clues shall be consulted.

In the case of Boston, where so many agencies inquire of the Exchange that this is particularly true, the writer has had the opportunity to examine a group of reports on the practice of a large number of agencies using the Exchange. Some send letters at once to all clues furnished by the Confidential Exchange, some select for a first consultation the agency most like their own, some consult first the one that is most conveniently situated for a prompt personal interview, some go first to those in whose methods they have the most confidence, many consult at once the agency that inquired last of the Exchange, and many others consult first the Associated Charities, when its name appears in the list of clues, consulting next the agency most like their own. These reports cannot be taken as proof of the wisdom or unwisdom of any definite principles of choice-they were gathered too informallybut they are suggestive. The agencies that always consulted the Boston Associated Charities first usually gave as their reason that

1 Miss Byington makes it clear that something more than good clerks and a sound office system is needed in a successful Exchange. It must be administered by social workers who are fully alive to its progressive case work possibilities. It must be assured continuity of policy, and that policy social in the highest sense.-The Confidential Exchange, p. 22.

2 Contained in notes of two informal conferences held in April, 1915, by students of the Boston School for Social Workers, for which the writer is indebted to Miss Zilpha D. Smith.

this particular agency studied the general family history very carefully, and always covered the clues furnished by the Exchange, thus rendering first-hand consultations with each and every one of these clues unnecessary. The agencies that invariably consulted first the Exchange inquirer of latest date usually gave as their reason that this source was most likely to know about the present situation.

Here we have somewhat divergent tendencies, which recall the principle of choice suggested in Chapter VIII, Outside Sources in General, that sources rich in history only be sought before those likely to prove rich in co-operation. It is to be expected that some agencies will be most occupied with the present situation, and that others, seeking a broader basis for what may prove a longer treatment and one looking to more permanent results, are eager to get a good family background for their diagnosis and prognosis. A placing-out agency is unquestionably more likely to get the special information that it needs from another placing-out agency, and, more important still, it is more likely to find that some one capable of taking full charge has already accepted the responsibility or wishes to do so. There is much to be said for propinquity also. For instance, an agency in a charities building on the next floor but one can be seen at once, and the direct communication, with its fair chance of seeing the particular worker in the agency who knows the client best and its further chance of hearing him detail, with case record in hand, the agency's information and experience, has very definite advantages.1 In theory, the agency that last inquired has either left the case in charge of another willing to assume full responsibility or else has inquired of all the previous inquirers, and is in a position to pass on their data; but with each remove such information tends to become diluted, so that the most that can be hoped for from the best of social agency witnesses is a hint as to what kind of information we are likely to find from the other agencies reported by the Exchange. If we consult only those whose methods of investigation we approve, a process of in-breeding and of separation begins at once, which may have serious effects upon our own work and upon community co-operation later.

1 For a discussion of the telephone as a medium of communication in the processes leading to diagnosis see the next chapter.

In summing up these conferences, Miss Zilpha D. Smith gives, as the first purpose of calling up previous inquirers, “To find out if any other organization holds itself responsible for the social treatment of the family or person, or responsible for making a plan. If so, to report how their affairs came to our notice and why. Also, to help, if need be, the family or person to co-operate with the other organization." When no such responsibility has been assumed and treatment therefore becomes necessary, the second purpose is to profit by the experiences of the agencies reported as having inquired, and to utilize any items of history that they may have gathered.

After treatment of a case has ceased, the notifications that continue to come in from the Exchange that the former client has been inquired about by successive agencies are often thrust aside or destroyed. Even if no attention is paid to these notices at the time, and sometimes they require attention, they should be saved for future reference, for treatment may have to be resumed at a later date.

It is well to remind ourselves, in leaving this subject of the use of Exchange data, that no system of indices can take the place of a quick and resourceful summoning of concrete case experiences into consciousness. Some social agencies would have been satisfied to return a prompt negative to the following inquiry:

A woman calling herself Sarah Collier Potter, who claimed that she was recently widowed and penniless, applied to a child-protective agency. She had with her a two-year-old boy named George and was soon to become a mother. As the intown addresses she gave were false, the agency wrote to the overseer of the poor in a nearby town on the chance that Mrs. Potter might be known to him, at the same time adding some descriptive details. The overseer replied that he knew of no Sarah Collier Potter, but that some items in the story suggested that she might be Bridget Karrigan, who had sometimes given the name of Collier, and who was an unmarried woman now pregnant and mother of a boy of two named George. Then followed a clear account of Bridget's occupations, application to court for support of her child, etc. These cases were found to be identical. An index alone could hardly have established the fact.

IV. SOME FURTHER DETAILS OF CO-OPERATION

Almost every aspect of the ethics and technique of consultation is involved in the right use of the confidential exchange. There are, however, certain details of co-operative relations that require