The day sanitarium for feeble and sick children is a useful arrangement in great cities. Such agencies frequently preserve the lives of infants and teething children during the hot weeks of summer, and bring rest and hope to many a weary mother who feels the depressing force of crowded conditions in the tenement districts. An old ship floats in the river, or a great tent is spread by lake or sea, or a permanent tabernacle is built where the breezes blow, and there is play and cheerfulness and new life. Nurses and medical care must be at hand, and means of transportation without cost must be furnished, for carfare under these circumstances makes the distance a prohibitory barrier to the poor.

Charity finds a significant field of service in supplying pure and sterilized milk for infants and children. Too frequently the food of the city children is tainted and dangerous to life, and the ignorance or helplessness of parents prevents the supply of wholesome diet. Pasteurized milk is one of the most important factors of health, and it greatly reduces mortality.

Among the prophylactic methods should be mentioned medical examinations of school children to prevent and cure diseases of the eyes and skin, curvature of the spine, and other ailments. In the same connection may be mentioned free dentistry and education in the care of the teeth of children in public schools.

The day nursery, or crèche, has for its purpose to give suitable care to young children while their mothers go out to work. This mode of charity often opens the way to instruct and encourage mothers in regard to proper methods of caring for infants, in diet, dress, bathing, and other matters of personal hygiene.

The day nursery is not without its dangers. Mothers may learn to find it agreeable to leave the care of their little ones to others. Fathers, disposed to shirk duty, may willingly let their wives go out to labor for support, while the home is neglected. The crèche itself may be unfit for the purpose, and not carefully attended; and, in consequence, contagious diseases may spread. Sometimes epidemics break out, and the place must be closed

and work be suspended for weeks together. This entails irregularity and disappointments. The essential factors of such an establishment are well-ventilated and well-lighted rooms, always fresh and clean; little beds of simple structure and clean as they can be; and skilful nurses during the day. At night the children are taken home by the mothers.

Only infants of widows, or of women whose husbands are disabled, should be accepted, lest men be taught to rely upon their wives for maintenance. A small fee is usually charged, more to prevent pauperism than to secure means of support. For both sanitary and moral reasons the infants of unmarried mothers cannot ordinarily be accepted.

The "Country Week" and Holiday Colonies. - Rich people know from experience the advantages of summer residence in the open country, near to the green fields, with life in sunshine and fresh air, far from dust and smoke and perpetual noise. Such change from city to country is far more important for the poor, whose residences are crowded and unwholesome. Farmers are

often willing to receive children gratuitously, or for a moderate compensation; but careful selection and supervision are necessary. Sometimes children whose parents are quite able to provide for them are sent out by charity societies, while many very needy ones are overlooked. It is not safe to send children who are afflicted with communicable disease, or who are morally depraved. Without careful oversight accidents may happen in transporting the careless, happy crowds. In some situations it is not prudent to rely on isolated farmers caring for scattered children, where supervision is difficult; and it is found better to establish camps with tents or rude shelter, so that the little community may be controlled by wise and trustworthy leaders, known to the association of charities.

These rare and exceptional enjoyments of country life and seashore ought not to be regarded as substitutes for more general and comprehensive measures. Cities should be urged to provide free playgrounds and small parks in all crowded districts,

where children may romp and play in open air, and older sisters and mothers can take the babies to rest in the shade of trees, near cooling jets of fountains.

Vacation schools in summer months are valuable aids to health and morals. The little ones are kept off the streets and saved from the perils of idleness. Roguish boys find a natural outlet for energy, and do not fall into ways of mischief and crime. Wise teachers know how to continue instruction as a pleasant recreation. Pupils do not forget so much of what they learned during the school year, as they would do if instruction were entirely suspended.

Charity should not be content and satisfied with sending children to the country and with opening vacation schools, but should follow them back into the noisome and stifling homes, and take up the tenement house problem.

The children of very poor families often come to school suffering from hunger, cold, and raggedness. Associations of good people may find it wise to provide food for the bodies of those who are weak from deficient nutrition, and decent clothes to protect them from the bite of frost.

Nor must we forget in this connection the vital importance to the poor of so directing the instruction that the young may acquire mechanical skill, have brain and hand training for constructive work, and so be better fitted to compete in a world which has no place nor patience for awkwardness and idleness. Economists tell us that the tendency of industry and trade is to secure for each workman the whole value of the product of his individual industry. So far as this tendency is real it implies that the wisest charity is that which raises the industrial efficiency of the youth by trade training.

Special departments are needed in the public schools for the training of that large class of slow and partly defective children, -the blind, the deaf, the stubborn, who cannot profit by ordinary class work, and who are sorely tempted to play truant and 1 J. B. Clark, "The Distribution of Wealth."

escape from the agony of hopeless struggle in competition with normal children. Many of these do not need to be sent away from home to state schools, but should be taught by special teachers, and permitted to grow up at home and in natural surroundings.

Medical care and hospital aids for the crippled, deformed, and feeble will be mentioned in the chapter devoted to medical charities.

Kindergartens are among the most useful and promising means of maintaining the integrity of the family and promoting its functions of education. Like the crèche, it not only educates the little children, but it gives a point of natural contact between the teacher and the mother, who is often ignorant and discouraged. The methods to be employed belong to the literature of pedagogical science and art. We should insist that real kindergarten work cannot be done without ability, training, and insight into educational aims and principles. In the pioneer stages, so slow is the formation of public opinion, the cost of support and experiment must often be borne by individuals and by voluntary associations. At a later stage public sentiment usually demands that the work be carried on by the public school system; but there are nearly always neglected areas where private philanthropy has a free field.

In any complete system of child saving, compulsory education must occupy a large place. Parents must not be left at liberty to educate their offspring, the future citizens, whose ignorance and evil habits are a menace to order and political institutions. If parents are too poor to provide food, clothing, and books, then charity in some form must come to their assistance.

An ungraded school or a day industrial school is a wise arrangement to give instruction and discipline to children who play truant and who may properly be left in charge of their parents at home. Parental schools are found necessary in carrying out the rules of compulsory attendance, because some families are quite unable or unfit to control the children. In both instances, where expense is incurred for board, the parents

should be required to pay all that they are able to do, so that the sense of responsibility may not be weakened and the public burdened with a cost which should be borne by parents. At this point we see the connection of charity with measures preventive of crime.1

Humane societies seek to teach the young to protect dumb animals from cruelty, and this charity reacts on human beings themselves, and makes them more considerate of each other. Poverty and neglected childhood are closely related to each other and to crime. A rational charity, comprehensive in its scope and method, adequate in equipment, directed by leaders of education and power, is one of the most promising means of preventing crime.

2. Care of Destitute Homeless Children. It is a cardinal principle of public and private charity that the family must be held to its task and responsibility by all available means, so long as it can possibly serve its functions; that parents and relatives should not be bribed by charity to neglect their own flesh and blood. This law is frequently violated and with disastrous results.

But there are circumstances in which children must perish, or suffer moral ruin, if they are not protected by the community. Children are naturally and necessarily dependent on others for physical support and for education. The events which make family support impossible or undesirable are the desertion or exposure of offspring by unnatural parents, especially by unmarried mothers; the death of parents; the unfitness of parents, through immorality, cruelty, or crime, for the care of their children; the impossibility of giving maintenance, as in case of some half-orphans. The methods adapted to these various conditions must be treated separately.

One principle must be insisted upon: If children are taken from parents, it should always be through a regular judicial process, so that parental rights and duties shall not be set aside by arbitrary, private action nor be wantonly overlooked.

1 Compare the chapter on Juvenile Offenders in Part IV.