Cambridge sketches
Estelle M. H. Merrill, Ed.

Most of these cooperate with the Associated Charities and resemble one another in plan and scope, having been called into being at different times to meet the needs of certain districts or certain classes of dwellers in our city. The Female Humane Society differs from the others in giving relief ostensibly in payment for work done. Women who can sew are allowed to carry to their homes basted garments which, when they are completed, are disposed of at a sale which is conducted once a year by the society.

The Cambridgeport Union Flower Mission is not connected with any church, as are so many similar missions. It brings relief of a very real and beautiful kind to many homes in which the graces of life are almost as important, and as hard to get, as the necessities.

Another class of Cambridge institutions must be mentioned here because there is no other division of this book under which they could more naturally be treated; but they are not “charities” in the sense in which the above-named undertakings are charities, for the recipients of their benefits are by no means “objects of charity,” but are simply, in most cases, ambitious, energetic young people for whom it is a pleasure to provide advantages which they could not afford to pay for at the market rates. The only reason for designating them as charities is that it would be impossible to carry them on efficiently without large gifts of money and time from people who look for no return in kind.

First in this class of beneficences I may mention --for convenience simply, without any intention of grading the value of the work done in associations, clubs or unions — the branches of the Christian Association for Young Men and for Young