University Settlements in Great Britain

Abstract

A quarter of a century has now elapsed since the foundation of Toynbee Hall in the east of London inaugurated the “University Settlement” movement in the vast and then almost inchoate capital of the British Empire; and the present time seems therefore appropriate for an attempt to form some estimate of the past results and future possibilities of the movement, which soon spread to other towns of England and Scotland. Yet such an undertaking is beset with serious difficulties. Throughout the whole history of the settlements there is indeed apparent an essential identity of purpose, an underlying uniformity of motive; but the individual institutions have been the outcome of the action of various bodies of persons whose aims, as formally expressed, seem often very diverse; different groups have laid the main emphasis on different objects and methods, and what has been counted as triumphant success by one group has been deemed of relatively small importance by another. Further, the wide range of the activities of the settlements, the multifarious nature of their interests and work, render it practically impossible for any one observer to comprehend the whole in his single survey; and the selection which he must needs make tends almost inevitably to be determined, and it may be even unfairly biassed, by his own personal predilections. Within this narrower range, moreover, there is no certain standard by which to measure success or failure; the value of the work accomplished by a settlement is not to be judged solely, or even chiefly, by the statistics of its classes and clubs. If it has realized its objects, however imperfectly, it has exercised upon the surrounding community, in conjunction with all other institutions that in any way and by any means make for good, a subtle and permeating influence which has resulted in a progressive amelioration of social life; but, for the very reason that this achievement is the result of a number of co-operating forces, the share of the settlement therein cannot be isolated or defined with any exactitude.