Page 41 - 1925 September - To Dragma

30 TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

f u l l y looked up, and only those who can show real qualifications
in personality and in experience are admitted. Moreover, only
those whose sincerity of purpose will stand up under the test of
spending at least half-time in the work f o r at least six months
can enter the training course. Those who can spare less time,
or who seem not to have the personal qualities f o r case-workers,
can some times be used as aides or office workers, and given only
the instruction that these simpler tasks demand, or directed to
other agencies where they can use such services. Only f r o m a
half to a third of those who apply succeed in getting into the train-
ing classes, and when they reach them they have no doubt that
they have embarked on a serious undertaking which calls for their
best efforts.

The actual class work comprises two hours a week, with some
outside reading; the rest of the time they are doing field work
under close supervision, just as students f r o m the regular profes-
sional training schools are doing. The first month is a proba-
tionary period, during which the student may be dropped i f she
does not measure up. Perhaps twenty to thirty a year succeed in
carrying through the course and graduating as "professional vol-
unteers." Many of them remain f o r years, becoming the back-
bones of the district committees, the interpreters of the Society to
the community, and, in some cases, members of the directing body
of the society. They supervise and train other volunteers, or even
in some cases the apprentice workers on the paid staff. They
speak in public f o r the Society f r o m the assured position of
knowing its work at first hand. We have fifty-three now at work.

We do not think of this training course as an avenue into paid
work. Training f o r that as well as the preliminary educational
standards will continue to be higher. There have been a few
instances in which young college graduates whose families have
opposed their going into paid social work, have taken the course
for volunteers, and later, when the families' prejudices have worn
away, have come on the regular staff. Others have later entered
a school of social work, and thus prepared themselves f o r a pro-
fessional future.

I have said that this was an experiment. As far as it has gone,
it seems highly successful. But there have been and are great
difficulties. Some lie in the ingrained attitude of the staff, who