I use the word "Social" in the title of this work to suggest that, save in an auxiliary way, I am not attempting to describe the religious features of the organization. Such a field of investigation would prove a very profitable and interesting one, but it is a field, which, for the sake of clearness and impartial study, should be kept separate. The organization itself recognizes the primary division. Commander Booth-Tucker, the leader of the Army in the United States from 1896 to 1904, says, "The Salvation Army is the evolution of two great ideas: first, that of reaching with the gospel of salvation the masses who are outside the pale of ordinary church influence, and second, that of caring for their temporal as well as spiritual interests."[1]

I have secured very little data from books, as there is but little authentic literature on the subject. Primarily, the data for this treatise were taken from personal observation. In pursuing the subject I have visited Salvation Army social institutions of every description. In addition to visiting the larger cities of the United States and the three Army colonies, situated in Ohio, Colorado and California, respectively, I have investigated the work in London, where the Army had its origin, and at the farm colony in Hadleigh, on the river Thames, some thirty miles from London. I have slept in the hotels, worked in the industrial homes, wandered over the farm colonies, and mingled with the inmates of other types of Army institutions.

Nov., 1909.E. G. L.