find out how much he does not know. Think of a child not knowing a weed from a flower, not knowing the commonest thing in country life.

Mrs. Diaz touched a point about public homes that I wish to show came right under my notice. There were some of the ladies connected with this charitable work in Washington who were anxious to build up such a home. Now the girls come from the country into the cities hoping to find easier life and more lucrative positions, and I, of course, saw what would be the result of such efforts. These girls come to the city to get better wages, but they have their wages put down because they are boarded in the public home for so much less than they can board at other places. Wages are reduced fully onehalf. I know of girls who were getting a dollar a day in the country and were offered only three dollars a week in the city because they could get boarded so cheaply in one of these charitable homes. This bringing them from the country is a very serious thing. The city has charms for these girls, and these protective institutional homes will influence them in going, but there is really no need of them. There are plenty of homes in the city where young girls can be boarded at the same cost that they are in the country. We do not want great institutions; we want the influence of the individual home. HENRY S. KENT said:-I want to know what we are to do with the tramp question. We live in the country and this consideration is near to us. Shall we turn tramps from the door hungry or shall we give them to eat? We know nothing of their history and we have no time to go into it. How are we to get away from our feelings, and what effect will this kind of doctrine have upon ourselves and our characters? How will it affect us? Sometimes if I do a good turn for a neighbor I think it does me more good than it does him. Suppose we all say "I am going to be as hard as adamant. I am going to carry out certain doctrines for the good of the world. If a man is drunk in the gutter I am going to let him lie there and die there, because forsooth, if I encourage him it makes it easy

for him to get drunk again?" We are told here that all diseases and sickness come from violated law. No doubt that is true. I was sick a little while ago aud I found it was very good to have my neighbors come and ask about me. They did not come in and say "You ought not to have done so and so." We find it comforting to have the sympathy of our friends, even if we are sinners. I want to know how much we are to do, what we are to do and how far we are to go in this case? I remember some time ago criticising a friend's action in turning everybody away from the door. He said he did not want to encourage these tramps and paupers to come to the door. This brings to my mind the question "Can we afford to sacrifice all our humane sympathies for the sake of a principle or idea?"

MRS. DIAZ said: I wish to say a word or two more simply because I may have made a wrong impression. I did not intend to advocate doing away with hospitals at once by any means, but the great mistake is in supposing that this palliative and reformatory and punishing work is the only thing and the best thing that humanity can do for humanity and that it is an ultimatum and must always go on; that we never can do anything better and must rest satisfied with that. We should set forces at work which will destroy the origin of this bad conduct we deplore so much. That which we speak of as conduct is nothing at all of itself. It simply shows the character that is behind. It is simply the character coming out, just as you look abroad every year and see the grass and the flowers. They are nothing of themselves except as they show forth forces which are back of them. Just so conduct is the showing forth of the character which is back of it, and sickness comes, as I say, from sin or ignorance, and that comes from something back of it all. Now the real work of humanity is to aim at this which is behind it, to aim at character; and character work I consider the primary work, and all the other I consider secondary work. And about the question that was asked what would we do in order to save life, I think the only test of that is to

consider what we would do supposing it was one of our own family. I think we should consider the greatest good of the greatest number, and that the great evil would be to establish pauperism among us, and if we allow it to be said we will always give whenever we think people are needy we shall always have pauperism and we shall cruelize a great many more people who are coming in future generations by being lenient to one man now. When we try to save one man now we are often cruelizing generations to come. I do not know that you will uphold me in saying this, but I have thought over this thing and I do not consider death a cruel thing. I think it would be better to have a few persons starve to death than to have pauperism rooted and deep-seated in this country as it is in other countries, and if the person who died was my own son or daughter I should say the same thing. That would be a kind of martyrdom.

MRS. WOOD said:-Our chief mistake in dealing with questions of reform in charity seems to arise from looking at one particular phase, at one side, of the great question, in not understanding that society in general, is passing now through a transient state. We are passing into the industrial era. We carry as a tremendous burden the relics of feudalism, the relics of the military age. Our own age and particularly our own country is far advanced in the industrial era of mankind, but we still carry as a burden this relic of feudalism. Let me illustrate. We no longer appeal to war. We understand that it is destructive to all that is best in the industrial state of society. The standing armies of the world number nearly four million men. All these must be supported by the industrial classes. All the kings and royal families of Europe and the nobility are relics of the old military system and are a natural burden upon the industrial classes. All the idle rich belong also to this class. Nearly all, of the ultra-fashionable class in our large cities we are in the habit of considering as belonging to this class. We are apt to consider as the destructive class only our criminals and paupers. They are a very small part

of our destructive classes, which should include all those who contribute nothing to industrial society. As I say the standing armies alone number nearly four million men, all of these, the nobility, all the royal families, all the idle rich, must be supported by those persons who work. The burden falls most heavily upon those whose wages are small. It is consequently owing to our present state of society that these destructive classes are so numerous. If we say it is because of intemperance, or because women have not the right to vote, or because of a faulty system of conducting our great institutions we do not keep our eye upon the main fact, that everything which aids the industrial class strengthens society. Then too we

should keep plainly in mind the chief characteristics of and the differences between the two systems. In the military system every man was against his neighbor; every nation was the enemy of every other nation. We are now passing into that stage where no man stands alone. Every person is so closely connected with another in the industrial state that it is like one corporate body. Consequently, those who would, for instance, feed tramps, or give to beggars in the street are feeding the disease of the body politic, actually weakening society, subtracting from the industrial class and adding to the destructive class. The characteristic of the industrial class, is a strong sympathy of every man with every man, and sympathy is a most important sentiment in this advanced state of society. It is very important that we should not disregard it; that we should not do anything that would eat away the strength of our sympathy, but it is quite possible if the tramp asks us for food to say "Will you earn it? Will you do so much work? Will you saw so much wood? Will you rake so much hay ?" Or, in cities, to send them to the proper institution. Now, in New York City when the Soup Kitchens were established we did not help the poor; we subtracted from the industrial class and added to the destructive class. Women, who are in the habit of earning their living in a comfortable way, left their work entirely and waited half a day at the doors of the Soup

Kitchen. It is sometimes necessary to kill our sympathy for the individual. But if we keep in view this grand array of the corporate body of society which has developed into this magnificent and ideal type of which so much is said, where every man is brother to every other man we nourish a higher sympathy, although for a moment, we violate that selfish sympathy which is not the outgrowth of a feeling for the other's hunger, but simply that we want to feel comfortable in seeing him fed. The session closed with singing by Miss TURNER.

SIXTH-DAY MORNING.

OUR WORK FOR HUMANITY.

THE PRESIDING CLERK. We have with us this morning a friend who lives at the "Hub of the Universe" at whose touch disorder becomes order and discord becomes harmony, and I am sure you will all feel that to be the case after you have listened to her word. I have now the pleasure of introducing to you Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz of Boston.

MRS. DIAZ said:-The best ways of working for humanity is a great question. What shall we do and how shall we do it? There seems to be an idea everywhere that the world needs bettering. This idea crops out in philanthropic societies, in the church and in the school, this idea of making the world better. Now there are a great many ways of beginning to make the world better. Usually it is supposed that the efforts at making the world better should be directed to the lifting up of those whom we call the lower classes, those that the police are watching for, and those that perhaps are called the "gutter drunkards" and the fallen women. These are supposed to be the ones we want to reform. Now, the first question is how much do we want to reform them? What shall be the first work among them?

Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," says "In regard to any degraded class, thought will show them where they are, why they are there and suggest the means of escape and the desire to make use of those means." That is what thought will do