The School of Social Work of the University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1909, at a time when problems of social welfare were considered the province of privately supported charitable organizations. Since then radical changes in social thought have occurred and the past decades have witnessed a growing recognition of the need for society as a whole to assume responsibility for the cure of social ills. Social work itself has become a legitimate profession, and the School of Social Work has earned its as a member of the University community.
In connection with the celebration of its fiftieth the School of Social Work invited the presentation of four major papers outstanding in the field of social welfare. These papers, published in this volume, relate to the four areas of curriculum in the educational program of graduate schools of social work, namely, Research, Human Growth and Development, the Social Services, and Social Work Practice.
The paper on research is by Ewan Claque, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was the first director of the School's Research Department and a stimulating reporter for the students of the dramatic events then taking place in Washington as the new Social Security program was brought into being. Paul B. Sears is the author of the paper dealing with human growth and eevelopment. He is the Director of the Conservation Department of Yale University and a scientist who is very much concerned with the problems of human destiny and morality.
The area of the social services is dealt with by Karl deSchweinitz, formerly Director of the School of social Work, the first Secretary of Public Assistance of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and in more recent years, author of several outstanding books and articles about personnel and procedures in public welfare. Social work practice is discussed in the fourth paper, by Ruth Smalley, Dean of the School of Social Work. The unusual range of her experience in social work makes it possible for her to identify the particular significance, for both practice and education for social work today, in the first three papers. And social workers everywhere will draw inspiration from her cogent analysis of the crucial issues which must be dealt with by the social work profession in the years ahead.
These papers are presented, says Roy F. Nichols, Vice-Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, in his foreword to this volume, in the belief that their breadth of view illustrates significant growth in the understanding of the problems of society which engage the dedicated attention of this profession.