system as will enable the authorities of the different states to keep track of those who are in the habit of violating the law, so they can follow a man who has been arrested for crime and identify him as an habitual criminal, if he be such, and upon conviction sentence him to prison without any fixed term, under an indeterminate sentence, and then let him understand that he has got to work out his own salvation, not as a matter of punishment, but simply as a matter of protection to society and for the further purpose of reforming him at any cost; or that, if he cannot be reformed, he shall remain a permanent ward of the state,-I believe when we have such a system there will be a marked decrease in crime. Until that is firmly fixed in the minds of those who have adopted crime as a calling, we can never hope to eliminate crime to any degree.

It is said that crime is on the increase. Now, I think, on the whole, that is true. I think, at the same time, we are making progress along the lines of better conditions for discovering crime, and that we are gradually organizing along the lines that I have mentioned, although we are going slow. The sharpest of our criminals to-day recognize it; they feel it and they talk about it, and I think any intelligent criminal to-day measures the time in his imagination when he either has got to go out of crime or go into permanent seclusion under the protection of the state, and when that time comes we will have less crime.

The habitual criminal is a person that will spread contagion and crime in his path wherever he goes. He, in his way, as a rule, is bright and intelligent-that is, the most dangerous of them-and they get boys and young men into ways of crime, and it is only a question of a short time before one intelligent criminal will mark his dozen that he has carried along the same road with him. Now, non-association in prison, under our system, is supposed to very largely eliminate this contagion; yet I am sorry to say that under the very best conditions this does not afford the protec tion that it ought to. Young men who have been committed in our prisons for their first offense, after serving their time, go out into the world to become hardened criminals. This is not as it ought to be. There are many defects in our method of administering our institutions where men are confined as criminals. I believe that in the State of Minnesota we are as nearly well situated as any of them, and yet I believe we are all short of what we ought to be; and I believe that not only is there fault in the arresting and handling of criminals before their incarceration, but also after their incarceration. And then, still further, in the third stage, instead of turning them loose upon the public, after completing their sentence, they ought always to be released under parole or probation. When a man is released from prison it should be with the understanding that he will be permitted to remain at large only so long as he obeys the law and respects the property rights of his fellows. Until our system, as I say, has worked out the conditions that I have outlined more perfectly, we cannot hope to accomplish any substantial results.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL ELEVATION.

BY ALICE J. MOTT, FARIBAULT.

This inquiry resolves itself into the question, How far is the germ of human character, given by heredity, dependent upon the soil in which it is planted, the atmosphere in which it grows? And I think we would all say, without reservation, that it is wholly dependent, since some kind of physical environment is certainly an essential of conscious existence. Without the impinging of the physical world upon the individual consciousness, the germ would remain a dry and lifeless seed forever.

There is a very narrow limit of physical conditions which can support human life at all; a still narrower range includes the possibilities of social and moral development. It is only under a happy combination of climatic and productive conditions that the world can support men with strength and leisure to encourage altruistic impulses-the basis of society and morality.

Our boasted civilization is even yet but skin deep, including but the favored, prosperous few. Every large city can reveal weltering abysses of misery and barbarism which medieval Europe could only parallel. The inhabitants of the poorer portions of a city pass their lives in ill-lighted, illventilated, overcrowded tenements, with insufficient food and clothing, under improper conditions of life. Such environment cannot nourish sound, healthy bodies, and, in the light of man's moral dependence upon physical conditions, can we expect them to nourish clean, wholesome souls?

Unquestionably it is outside the range of comfortable existence, as we regard it, that the criminal instincts become rampant.

What, then, is the duty set before us here?

As the moral sense of society grows keener, a feeling of responsibility for the weak and wicked is assumed by the respectable, and the protection of the rich against the poor begins to include two-sided schemes for mutual benefit. Practical philanthropy asks: "Should not the discoveries of social science, like those of physical science, be followed by new victories of man over matter, of order over chaos?"

And attempts are not wanting. Widespread impulses are at work to accelerate social evolution by conscious and intelligent adaptation of physical conditions to human needs-not alone one's own needs, but the needs of society at large. In some of our American cities, particularly New York, the worst slums have been condemned as tenements, and converted into playgrounds. Nearly every large city adopts, more or less unreservedly, the gospel of enforcing decent living on the poor, especially the children of the poor. Day nurseries, free kindergartens, the distribution of school lunches, the throwing open of public grounds for playgrounds-all are attempts to supply the lack of home comforts to the little ones of the slums.

Whether the favored and prosperous few will ever be able forcibly to regenerate the improvident many is an open question. It can only be accomplished by raising their standard of living, and can this be done without their consent? As social students, we must look beyond immediate events to final results, and most of us are inclined to be somewhat cautious in accepting the reports of enthusiasts.

An ill-smelling tenement is wiped out, and a row of pretty cottages takes its place; immediately the criminal record of that district becomes a blank page, but the criminal record of the city is no cleaner, and the human rats who swarmed the slum have fled to some other cover.

It is now fifteen years since free city kindergartens were established to deliver from degradation the rising generation of poor children. These are now grown to manhood, yet tramps, burglars and inebriates are no fewer and the proportion of delinquents to population no less.

But the story of one decade is nothing. Does history give us an instance in which the shouldering of one class by another has ever resulted in the bettering of the shouldered,-in which the upper strata of society has ever reached down to pull up the lower by the boot-straps without further be

miring? We must remember that the story of human progress is, after all, the story of self-help; that the races which nature has coddled and poul ticed are the backward races; that opportunity for improvement and the sharp spur of necessity have been the best nurses.

The Roman mob was an extreme example of a helpless and dependent class, driven, through no fault of its own, by relentless economic conditions to the idleness of the crowded city. This class was not neglected by the rich, but pampered and supported by public gifts, and loans,-free lands, free grain, free entertainments, finally free coin,-which all resulted in reducing the public pets to the most contemptibly demoralized band of parasites and beggars the world has ever seen. Despite her public baths, her free lunches, her parks and her playgrounds, her gymnasia, her fêtes and festivals, her holidays and her processions, Rome rotted from her rotten heart. So the history of poor laws the world over is a most dismal narrative, describing, in alternation, extremes of indulgence and hardness.

The duty of the rich to the poor has been evident from the first differentiation of wealth; the method of procedure is little nearer a solution now than then.

If the wretched millions could keep up with the vanguard of civilization, when once put in position, the effort to place them there might be forthcoming; but the melancholy truth remains that, while miserable environment makes degraded people, just so surely do degraded people make miserable environment.

The great majority of the city rabble, in America, at least-even the miserable victims of the sweat-shops-might have better surroundings if they would. It is not enough to point to a broad unworked continent at their backs; they want the "excitement of city life." Have we a right to force them out of it? We may compel landlords to provide better quarters; can we force cleanliness and decency upon those who prefer dirt and disorder?

We must never forget that important as is environment to human development, there is another factor no less essential-viz., the individual capacity to use environment. No amount of culture can turn the parasite into the fruit tree, the cabbage into the grain. Changes and alterations come in the breed, through changed conditions, but they must come slowly and naturally, and, above all, from within, not by external manipulation.

Because the delinquent and defective classes have lived from infancy amid the most squalid surroundings, we may not hastily conclude that these have caused their degradation, nor that prosperous and paupers differ only in environment. The human reacts upon environment. There are families in Minnesota farmhouses living in as beastly squalor as can be found in Darkest London.

What, then, is left for us? Shall we abandon our endeavors to help those who are worse off than ourselves? No, a thousand times, no! Why not, since the effort seems so hopeless? Why wage the long, unequal fight against another's misery and sin, when, after all, our unhappy neighbor must wrestle with his own angel? Why force our aid upon him? For the very sufficient reason that we cannot help it.

Social elevation is and always has been the growth of sympathetic imagination in society at large. It becomes more and more impossible, with

advancing civilization for the well-fed to leave the hungry unrelieved. It grows more and more distressing, with every generation of true culture for the comfortable to leave suffering unassuaged.

As kindliness is its own excuse for being,-the most beautiful flower upon the Tree of Life,-so is suffering, especially physical suffering, its own excuse for being done away. No effort is too great to compass the end of pain relieved and charity exercised. Suppose our improved tenements do not benefit the moral nature of the lodgers one jot; suppose we only save the lives of eight hundred babies a year-who will say this is not worth while? The kind-hearted lady who hopes to bring about a millennium by establishing a soup kitchen in her town is doomed to bitter disappointment, but one result is assured-she fills some hungry stomachs.

But philanthropy does more than this. Social elevation can only come. through the spread of higher social ideals, and psychologists recognize imitation as the great social lever. We may not induce the degraded to help. themselves, but we may indirectly induce them to help others. The sympathy which prompts a kindly act is more contagious than the plague. The actual ultimate benefit of charity to the recipient has never been demonstrated, and perhaps never can be, but it is only by faith, that blessed evidence that things unseen are turning out all right, that the highest part of human nature is kept alive.

What, then, is the value of physical environment în civilization? All environment is physical. Environment is the sum of impressions made upon the consciousness by the external universe. Granted the dualism of mind and matter, no word can pass from soul to soul except through physical medium. If we speak to brother man, it must be by altering his physical environment. If we impinge upon him, it must be through his senses. What gifts, then, may we bring him? Assuredly, the gifts of physical comfort. The gospel of hope can only be preached through the loaves and fishes. He is a hypocrite who speaks high words to the starving, yet out of his superfluity relieves not their necessities. The spiritual message cannot ring true if the physical medium be false and unsound.

The new philanthropy has newly sanctified to its highest place the material coin of human intercourse. The most quintessential of spiritual forces can only through these physical manifestations be perceived.

And we may hope for results from charitableness which charity has never shown.

THE ECONOMICAL ADMINISTRATION OF CHARITY.

BY WM. C. SMALLWOOD, GENERAL SECRETARY ASSOCIATED CHARI

TIES, MINNEAPOLIS.

It frequently happens that men and women of the finest spirituality who ask for religion are given a creed-a cold, pitiless, unlovable creed. In like manner it often happens-nearly always happens, I might say that men and women who ask for charity are given a dole of fuel or of food, coldly, hardly, and unsympathetically, by men and women who know nothing about

the conditions of the applicants. Most men and women think that charity consists of relief. Relief is no more charity than a brick is a house. It is simply a feature of charity. The higher charity means wisdom, judgment, intelligence, sympathy, love, understanding.

The first principle in the economical administration of charity is wisdom-trained service. It is deplorable that politicians elect men to minister to the poor who know nothing, by training, by heart or by intelligence, of their conditions. The economical conditions governing the family, the home, and the individual are the very first essentials to intelligent and economical charity. The first thought is to create a proper understanding of what charity really is, with intelligence to administer and govern it. If it is intelligent it will follow naturally that economy in the administration will be the result. I ask you if it is economy in the administration of charity to send a man to the workhouse for twenty or thirty days for drunkenness, and leave his family, the object of his care, to the overseer of the poor? Why do we not go further back and do something to prevent the man getting drunk? The family, left at the mercy of out-door relief, having had the first taste, go on and on, and there is no relief, no result. The man gets drunk again, and his family is back upon the poor department, over and over again. I have sat in the police courts of London and of cities in America and have heard the sentence pronounced for the fortieth, sixtieth and one hundredth time, for drunkenness. Does this reform? Is this charity? Does punishment in such cases in any way reform?

This is a little bit off the subject apparently, but it comes right back to the point that the man's family is the object of poor relief, and not always intelligently administered. I am talking of prevention as one of the first means of economical charity.

It so frequently happens that a boy or girl, past the age for admission to any of the state institutions, is wayward and needs attention. Public officials say they are too old to be placed in an instítution; we must wait until they go a little farther, until they have done some atrocious act, and then they can be committed to some institution. Here, again, I would ask that prevention be used; that some means be employed to prevent the boy or girl going to the last round in the ladder. This intermediate state between the age of commitment and that of twenty-one-it seems to me that something could be done in there that would be of service in the wise and economical administration of charity.

In direct charity, I ask if it is economy for a man to walk, week after week, into the overseer's office and get his dole of groceries or of coal without being asked for anything in return? Is there any reason why a man deprived of employment should be made the subject of public charity? Should there not be in every city and in every town and village some means by which a man or a woman can earn what they ask for, and not be compelled to be recipients of public charity? This on the face of it is so apparent that it does not admit of argument. What men and women need is not more poorhouses or more insane asylums, but men and women of judgment who will create laws and understanding that will prevent them getting into poorhouses and insane asylums. When the time comes that men and women are selected to fill these positions that treat with the poor, rather than elected to fill them, we will have a better condition of things; we will be better able

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