Chapter II: Part 2

Another phase of the question which has not been touched upon is the relation between quarantine and the medical control of immigration. At ports where the United States Public Health Service administers the quarantine law and conducts the medical inspection of immigrants, the two functions are performed under conditions making each more efficient and also reducing interference with commerce to a minimum. The medical inspection of immigrants at Ellis Island, which is performed by medical officers of the United States Public Health Service, constitutes the second line of quarantine defense and not a few cases of small-pox and typhus fever which have escaped observation at the state quarantine station have been detected in the medical examination at Ellis Island.

If both functions were performed by the Public Health Service at this port the work could be carried on much more effectively and with benefit to the immigrant—a factor which no one seems to have considered. When cases of scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria and the other contagious diseases of childhood were taken off vessels at the state quarantine station, children died without their mothers, who were detained at Ellis Island, even being able to visit them once during their illness. At the same time a magnificent new group of hospitals for contagious diseases remained idle at Ellis Island. No better example of the danger and inutility of divided control could be found than this.

WILSON LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY

CAROLINE B. ALEXANDER
Hoboken, N. J.

In attempting a review of the social legislation passed in New Jersey during the administration of Woodrow Wilson, it is difficult to disentangle his share in its accomplishment. It is also difficult to distinguish between purely political measures and those which would be of special interest to social workers.

Measures for better primaries and corrupt practices acts had been introduced several times while he was still president of Princeton University. The Employers’ Liability Act was recommended by a commission named by his predecessor, Governor Fort. The Consumer’s League and Federation of Women’s Clubs had been working for a long time to improve laws relating to the hours and condition of women and children in industry. At the same time, no one who has been in touch with the marvelous change which has brought New Jersey to the first rank of progressive states can fail to realize that in practically one session of the Legislature the astounding insight, force and influence of one man achieved what might otherwise have taken years to accomplish. It must be remembered that almost all the important Wilson legislation was passed by the Legislature of 1911, when the House was Democratic. The Senate, although Republican, was brought into line by the governor. The session of 1912, when both Houses were Republican, produced little important legislation, and the Legislature of this year up to the time when President Wilson resigned to assume his duties at Washington passed but one important measure—that regulating the trusts incorporated in New Jersey. The jury reform bill is still under discussion and will be the subject of a special session of the Legislature in May.

I shall attempt to give a list of the laws primarily relating to social legislation, but the great reforms which will always be associated with Wilson’s name, although specifically political in their nature, must have a vast influence on the whole structure of the state. If our politics become cleaner, inefficiency and graft must gradually disappear and the citizens will grow to feel that they can trust their representatives with larger and larger sums to be used for the relief and care of the wards of the state.

Among these laws perhaps the most important are the following:

Limitation of the working hours of women to sixty a week, the first
regulation of any kind for New Jersey women in industry; appropriation
for the first time for the Woman’s Reformatory which was urged in
Governor Wilson’s message to the legislature of 1911; standardization
of trained nursing; establishment under the State Board of Education
of special classes for children three years below the normal and also
special classes for blind children; provision for the punishment of
any person controlling a public place of amusement who permits the
admission of children under eighteen years without a parent or
guardian, and for any adult who encourages juvenile delinquency;
passage of an act requiring that no pawnbroker shall receive any
article from any person under the age of eighteen years; prohibition
of furnishing cigarettes or tobacco to minors; provision for parental
schools or house of detention for juvenile offenders; appointment of a
special county judge for juvenile and domestic relation cases;
enactment of an act placing New Jersey in the front rank in the
campaign against tuberculosis; prohibition of the use of common
drinking cups; establishment of free dental clinics; regulation of
moving picture shows; employment of prison labor on roads; enactment
of a comprehensive and scientific poor law; regulation of weights and
measures; passage of an indeterminate sentence act; abolition of
contract labor in all prisons and reformatories.

In addition to this legislation, it may be interesting to mention the appointment of commissions on prison labor, employers’ liability, city government, public expenditures, ameliorating the condition of the blind and playgrounds in all cities and villages. Governor Wilson also made several excellent appointments with entire disregard of politics, particularly those of his commissioner of education and his commissioner of charities and corrections. For the first position he brought Dr. Calvin Kendall from Indiana, and for the second he named Joseph P. Byers. Excellent appointments were also made to the boards of managers of the various state institutions.

Governor Wilson with his wife and daughter made a tour of inspection of all our state institutions, which in contrast to the usual perfunctory governor’s visit, was most valuable in bringing him in touch with the superintendents and with the various problems at the different institutions.

PERSONALS

Francis Greenwood Peabody, Plummer professor of Christian morals in Harvard University, recently retired from its faculty after service extending over a generation.

To the observant public he is known chiefly as author of several works on social ethics, such as The Approach to the Social Question and Jesus Christ and the Social Question or as a preacher and speaker whose inspiring thoughts are clothed in remarkably well chosen words. At Harvard he was a college preacher, and had a leading part in changing the religious exercises of the College Chapel so that attendance was voluntary instead of required, and there were ministrations from clergymen of different denominations. He helped to place the divinity school on a board basis.

His chief work in the academic world was the significant one of beginning and developing systematic instruction in the application of principles of ethics to pressing social problems. Just thirty-three years ago he began a course of lectures on that subject in the divinity school of Harvard. Four years later it was made a general university course for advanced students. In this said Mr. Peabody, there is “a new opportunity in university instruction. With us it has been quite without precedent. It summons the young men who have been imbued with the principles of political economy and of philosophy, to the practical application of those studies.”

That course at Harvard, with the instruction begun at Cornell in 1884 by Frank B. Sanborn, under President White, was the beginning of academic work in this country, specialized and practical, in that field, and at Harvard it has continued, a systematic development. It is within the division of Philosophy. This means no lack of appreciation of the economic forces in society, but it points to the broad highway to solving vital problems though the field of ethics. This teaching so won the confidence of a generous donor, prominent alike in business and philanthropy, that the erection of Emerson Hall was made possible, with ample quarters for the Department of Social Ethics. Thus Mr. Peabody leaves the department which he has built up on the solid ground of continuity.

Among the hundreds of young men who have taken Mr. Peabody’s general course and his seminary courses, many have been helped by him to be better citizens and neighbors. Not a few have carried stimulus caught from him into professional life in social service the country over.

The recent and really remarkable activity of Harvard students in social service, centering at Phillips Brooks House, was largely founded and fostered by Mr. Peabody. He has been identified with Prospect Union from its opening in 1891: a piece of university extension, in whose evening classes the teachers are college students and the students are all sorts and conditions of men from mercantile and industrial life in Cambridge. Long ago, he helped to start co-operative stores, a method of bringing forward democracy and thrift—which is none the less sound because many persons were not ready for it. He urged the trial in Massachusetts cities, under local option, of the foreign system of government administration of the sale of liquor—to which worse systems may yet bring us.

He was a leading founder of the Associated Charities of Cambridge. In these and many other ways he has brought the knowledge of a college professor, with warm interest, into the affairs of the community.

JEFFREY R. BRACKETT.

* * * * *

The social survey is gaining recognition as an instrument for community advance so rapidly that the new Department of Surveys and Exhibits of the Russell Sage Foundation, which was established last October, has found it necessary to increase its staff. The work of the department during its first three months has been largely advisory—defining surveys by specific illustrations, outlining the steps for selecting a representative committee to back a survey or an exhibit, assisting in the choice of subjects to be covered and estimating probable costs. The increase in the staff will facilitate an extension of this service and make more field work possible. The new members of the staff are Zenas L. Potter of New York and Franz Schneider, Jr., of Boston.

Mr. Potter is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where he specialized in administration of governmental problems. This was followed by a year’s graduate work at Columbia in economics and social economy, where he received the Toppan prize for the best work in constitutional law. After leaving Columbia he was field secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee for two years. He investigated the work conditions of children in the state, and in 1912 directed the cannery investigation for the New York State Factory Investigating Commission. The findings of this inquiry are being used in the campaign for better laws regulating child labor conditions in New York state.

Mr. Schneider, while taking courses leading to his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave special attention to subjects in the field of public health and sanitation. Since 1910 he has taught in the institute, and will leave the position of research associate in the sanitary research laboratories to join the Department of Surveys and Exhibits. In the summer of 1911 he was employed in Kansas on special investigations into the bacteriology of the egg-packing industry, and during the summer of 1912 on an investigation into the fundamental principles of ventilation. For the last year he has helped edit the _American Journal of Public Health_ and at present is health officer of Wellesley, Mass. The latter work is part of a plan which is being worked out with Prof. E. B. Phelps, also of the institute, to build up an organization to operate the Board of Health work of small towns in the neighborhood of Boston. The aim is to give these towns a service comparable to that of the large cities, a service which they alone could not afford.

* * * * *

A young sanitary inspector in a mid-western city had his suspicions of a new milk company. He never seemed to be able to catch the wagon as it drove into town, so one day he jumped on his bicycle and rode out to the farm to get a sample. The man was not there, and his wife said that they had no milk left on the place that morning. The inspector’s suspicions were more than ever aroused, and he made a search of ice boxes and cooling places, only to find no milk. It is a very easy thing for milk to disappear when an inspector turns in at the gate. Nothing daunted, therefore, he pulled down a pail from its peg, marched out to the pasture, cornered a cow, milked her, and, sample in hand, rode back to the city triumphant.

The health commissioner is wonderfully proud of this spirit of not-to-be-balkedness in his inspector. He has the makings in him of a master of public health. But the commissioner felt obliged to explain to his assistant with as sober a face as he could muster, that up to date in that part of the commonwealth they had not hitherto arrested a single cow for putting formaldehyde in her milk or for diluting it.

* * * * *

Childhood’s Bill of Rights, printed some time ago in THE SURVEY[3], has developed an ever widening influence. One enthusiastic friend sent it during the past Christmas season to some forty foreign lands. V. H. Lockwood, author of the bill, is a busy Indianapolis attorney but he finds time for social service whether called upon to act as judge _pro tem_ of the juvenile court, as the vice-president of the Children’s Aid Association, or on a committee of the State Conference of Charities. His special interest just now is the work of the vice committee of the Indianapolis Church Federation.

Mr. Lockwood, long ago, became interested in the juvenile court. He was frequently consulted by Judge Stubbs, the first juvenile court judge in Indiana, and for several years was one of his substitutes on the bench. Out of this experience grew the Bill of Rights which was jotted down in his notebook years ago. From it grew also the Children’s Aid Association, which Mr. Lockwood helped to organize for the purpose of saving children from being taken into court. He has also co-operated in drafting several of Indiana’s laws for the safeguarding of children, particularly those having to do with the juvenile court, contributory delinquency, the licensing of maternity hospitals and children’s institutions, and child labor.

MRS. V. H. LOCKWOOD
]

To Mrs. Lockwood, however, is due most of the credit in connection with Indiana’s child labor law. She has for several years been secretary of the State Child Labor Committee and has been active in other welfare work. Two years spent under the direction of the National Child Labor Committee in investigating conditions in Indiana armed her with facts which were used effectively before the two legislatures which considered the child labor bill. The first attempt met with defeat, but the next session passed the present law. Between the two sessions Mrs. Lockwood traveled over the state, working to educate the people through the clubs and schools. She is one of the lecturers of the Indiana Federation of Clubs, and takes a part in many branches of social welfare work in Indianapolis.

* * * * *

A Sunny Life: The biography of Samuel June Barrows, is the title of a volume which Little, Brown and Company are to bring out in April. The author is Mrs. Barrows. Readers of THE SURVEY who knew the former president of the International Prison Congress, but who had only glimpses of his remarkable experiences as editor, congressman, minister, digger of Greek temples, and follower of Custer on the plains, will look forward to this record of the man by his comrade and fellow worker of fifty years.

* * * * *

Floyd J. Miller, who has been in newspaper work for six years, has left the staff of the Detroit _Free Press_ to become financial secretary of the Detroit Associated Charities.

TREND

From the pages of John Gower, a correspondent of the New York _Evening Post_ takes the following passage, in the hope that the trials of a housekeeper in the fifteenth century may bring consolation to the householder of today. Says the worthy Gower:

Man is so constituted as to require above all else food and drink. So
it is no wonder if I speak of victualers, whose principle it is to
deceive and to practice fraud. I will begin, as an instance, with the
tavern-keeper and his wine-cellar.... If his red or white wine loses
its proper color, he mixes it freely to procure the proper shade....
If I stop in to fill my flask, he gives me of his best wine to taste,
and then fills my flask with some cheap stuff. He pretends to have any
foreign vintage that one desires, but under divers names he draws ten
kinds from the same barrel.... The poor people complain with reason
that their beer is made from an inferior quality of grain, while good
beer is almost as dear as wine. If you give an order for beer to be
delivered at the house, the inn-keeper will send a good quality once
or twice until he gets your trade, and then he sends worse at the same
price.... Every one in the city is complaining of the short-weight
loaves the bakers sell, and wheat is stored with the intention to
boost the price of bread.... Whether you buy at wholesale or retail,
you have to pay the butcher twice the right price for beef and lamb.
Lean beef is fattened by larding it, but the skewers are left in and
ruin the carver’s knife.... To fetch their price, butchers often hold
back meat until it is bad, when they try to sell it rather than cast
it to the dogs.... Poulterers sell as fresh game what has been killed
ten days before(!)... For my own part, I can dispense with partridges,
pheasants, and plovers. But capons and geese are almost as high
nowadays as hens.

Yet, if all those of whom I have spoken agreed to be fair and just,
there would still be unfairness in the world. For even laborers are
unfair, and will not willingly subject themselves to what is
reasonable, claiming high wages for little work; they want five or six
shillings for the work they formerly did for two. In old times
workingmen did not expect to eat wheat bread, but were satisfied with
coarser bread and with water to drink, regarding cheese and milk as a
treat. I cannot find one servant of that sort now in the market (_i.
e._, intelligence office!). They are all extravagant in their dress,
and it would be easier to satisfy two gentlemen than one such ill-bred
servant. They are neither faithful, polite, or well-behaved. Many are
too proud to serve like their fathers.... The fault lies with the
lethargy of the gentry, who pay no heed to this folly of the lower
classes; but, unless care be taken, these tares will soon spring up,
and the insurgence of these classes is to be feared like a flood or a
fire.

The trouble is that no one is satisfied with his own estate; lord,
prelate, commoner—each accuses the other. The lower classes blame the
gentleman and the townsman, and the upper classes blame the lower, and
all is in confusion.... The days prophesied by Hosea are come to pass,
when there shall be no wisdom in the earth. I know not if the fault
lie with laymen or churchmen, but all unite in the common cry: “the
times are bad, the times are bad.”

* * * * *

Annie Laws (_Kindergarten Review_) believes that she can trace the social spirit of the kindergartner as an important factor in stimulating, and in some cases, even initiating, many of the social movements of today, among them playgrounds, social centers, vacation schools, public libraries, mothers’ clubs and school and home gardens.

The relation between the kindergarten and the big world outside the kindergarten Miss Laws states as follows:

Some one has said that “the primary aim of the kindergarten is to
create a miniature world which shall be to the child a faithful
portrait of the greater world in its ideal aspects.”

If the kindergarten can bring to each and all of us its aid in helping
us to create for ourselves a miniature world, which shall be a
faithful portrait of the greater world in its ideal aspects; and if it
can aid in making us content to give to our communities the service
for which we are best fitted, and can teach us to so live that not so
much social efficiency as social reciprocity shall be our aim and
purpose, then we shall all agree to give to the kindergarten its true
place as one of the most valuable factors of social life and social
work of the present time, one worthy of our best thought and effort.

* * * * *

A CONTRAST

LAURA SIMMONS

Across the gloom a shadow flits; I glimpse a sodden face Wherein the years of sin and toil and care have left their trace: A wanton laugh—I mark no more, for yonder in the glow One waiteth me—my love, my star! with welcoming, I know: Tender and fine is she: withal so stately sweet and fair My grateful heart thrills to Heaven, to see her standing there! If this be Woman—pure, benign, Man’s blessed beacon-light, Then—Christ! What that poor outcast soul that passed me in the night?

* * * * *

The following striking comparison is from The Road from Jerusalem to Jericho (_Good Housekeeping_), a plea by Frances Duncan for votes for women on the ground that woman is the ideal samaritan; man the priest and the Levite who at the present time alone has the power, but lacks the inclination, to stoop to care for the injured by righting social wrongs, especially those affecting women. Miss Duncan tells of a haunting drawing by Frederick Remington:

The central figure is that of a man who has been taken by a band of
Indians; four or five of his captors are about him, and you see the
relentless faces lit with the grim joy of capture. Around the man’s
neck a noose hangs loosely; about him he sees only the inexorable
faces, the wide stretches of the plains, the silences in which there
is no help. The man looks past the plains into the ghastly future that
is just ahead. The picture is called “Missing.”

In this country hardly a day goes by but in it is enacted a tragedy
worse than that of Remington’s picture; and it’s called by the same
name. Take up a paper almost any day in New York and you read of the
disappearance of a girl of fourteen or fifteen or sixteen, or of the
suicide of a girl who has been caught in the horrible undertow from
which, as far as society is concerned, there is no return. Within the
last year, on the various routes between New York and Chicago, no less
than nine hundred and sixty girls have disappeared.

* * * * *

THE UNDER DOGS

HORATIO WINSLOW in the _Coming Nation_

If I had not heard the bitter cry,
If I had not seen the bleeding feet—
I think I should echo the salving lie
That toil is jolly and chains are sweet.

If I had not walked the bedless night,
If I had not lived the mealless day—
I think I should censure the appetite
Of thieves that pilfer and fools that slay.

If I had not heard and seen and felt
And wept for lack of a pathway out—
Most like I should pat an expansive belt
And say nice things of the Russian knout.

* * * * *

A woman of philanthropic tendencies was paying a visit to a lower East Side school. She was particularly interested in a group of poor pupils and asked permission to question them.

“Children, which is the greatest of all virtues?”

No one answered.

“Now, think a little. What is it I am doing when I give up time and pleasure to come and talk with you for your own good?”

A grimy hand went up in the rear of the room.

“Please, ma’am, youse are buttin’ in.”—_The Delineator._

* * * * *

The _Ladies Home Journal_ believes that, no less than factory and commercial worker, the oldest of home workers—the “domestic”—should be protected by standardization of wages, hours and living conditions. An editorial in the March issue says:

There is today practically no standard of wages for domestic help. The
wages vary in different cities: in fact they vary in a city and a
neighboring suburb. One “employment agency” fixes one wage: another
settles on a different wage. There is no equitable fairness either to
mistress or servant. No one really knows what is fair. The same
haphazard system applies to hours of work. Neither employer nor
servant knows what constitutes a fair day’s work for a cook or a maid.
The whole question should be threshed out and adjusted to a standard
just as are other branches of labor. Whether the eight-hour idea can
be effectively worked out in the home is a question: more likely we
shall have to begin on a ten-hour-day basis and gradually adjust
ourselves to an eight-hour schedule with extra pay for extra hours.
Employer and helper should know exactly where each stands on both
questions of hours and wages. There is no further reason why,
gradually, the system of our servants living outside of our homes
should not be generally brought into vogue—the same as the working
women engaged in all business lines. It is now done in “flats” and
“apartments” where there is no room for servants’ quarters, and there
is really no reason why the system should not be followed in houses
where there is room. This would give a freedom of life to the servant
that she does not now have, and which lack of freedom, and hours of
her own and a life of her own, is the chief source of objection to
domestic service, while the employers’ gain would lie in the fact that
our homes could be smaller in proportion to the number of servants for
whom we must now have rooms. In other words there seems to be no
practical reason, except a blind adherence to custom, why the worker
in the home should not be placed on exactly the same basis as the
worker in the office, the store or the factory. That this idea is
destined to come in the future, and in the near future, admits of no
doubt. Of course it will take some time to consider all the phases of
the matter that make home service different from office or store
service. But we shall never solve the question of domestic service
until we first place it on a practical business basis.

* * * * *

In the library of Clark University the volumes of Charles Booth’s Life and Labor of London are bound under the title A Survey of London.

BOOKS

THE EVOLUTION OF A COUNTRY COMMUNITY

By WARREN H. WILSON. The Pilgrim Press. 221 pp. Price $1.25; by mail
of THE SURVEY $1.35.

Because Dr. Wilson has made a clear and pointed statement of fundamental conditions, the student of rural sociology is grateful for this book, even though much of what it contains is obvious to him. Throughout, the writer shows his belief that the rural population can be improved by a socially actuated church. Although he believes that a country church should be inspirational he makes clear the fact that the church cannot succeed unless it enters into the whole life of the farm, economic and otherwise. For instance, Dr. Wilson very properly insists that if a farmer is producing but sixty bushels of potatoes on an acre of land which should yield three hundred bushels he is guilty of a wrong that should be denounced just as stridently as the doctrinal sins which have so long occupied the attention of rural pastors. In the co-operation of these activities rather than in actual union the writer sees promise of a solution of many of the problems of the country church. He shows clearly that people cannot be united in religion until they are united in their social economy.

“The business of the church is to organize co-operative enterprises,
economic, social and educational, and ... to educate them in the
advantages of life together. Co-operation must become a gospel.”

This definition of the business of the church may seem rather heterodox, coming from the head of a Presbyterian department, but the department of which Dr. Wilson is the head has reached its widely recognized effectiveness because it has been actuated by such aggressive common sense as this.

That the volume is dedicated to Anna B. Taft, who has contributed so largely to the success of the movement to reanimate country churches, is indeed pleasant. Dr. Wilson adds to the value of the volume by giving many definite instances of definite achievement in the redirection of country life through the church’s activity.

The book is well named; it does present in an orderly fashion the development of the country community. Dr. Wilson follows Professor Ross of Purdue in his definition of the four types of farmers—the pioneer, the land farmer, the exploiter, and the husbandman. The writer very happily shows that in many communities the evolution has proceeded so irregularly that all the four types of farmers are now living side by side, and that their four sides may be contending for mastery. That the pastor and the church ministering to the farmer of each type are determined by that type is a clearly stated lesson that social workers outside of rural communities might very well take to heart.

Some communities, Dr. Wilson recognizes, are exceptional. He apparently agrees with Prof. T. N. Carver of Harvard that the best farmers in the country are the Mormons, the Scotch Presbyterians, and the Pennsylvania Germans. Each one of these peoples—for they are no less—has come to agricultural prosperity because this agriculture has been built around the church. The organization of the Mormons, for instance, is not only efficient, but it revolves around the church. Dr. Wilson might very well have gone further in this connection and called attention to the fact that the leaders of the Latter Day Saints have made their people happy, here and now, by realizing that all their wants—social, economic, religious, political—were so closely interrelated that they must all be taken care of by collective action.

As a clear and well-proportioned statement, characterized by ample knowledge, careful statement and good temper, the book is valuable.

WARREN DUNHAM FOSTER.

CONSTRUCTIVE RURAL SOCIOLOGY

By JOHN M. GILLETTE. introduction by George E. Vincent, president of
the University of Minnesota. New York, Sturgis & Walton. 301 pp. Price
$1.60; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.75.

There can be no doubt that this work is constructive if we remember that adequate information is the beginning of all sound construction. The book is packed with information on all phases of rural life. Whether it is sociology or not depends upon one’s point of view and one’s bringing up. It may be economics. Among the eighteen chapters there are included such topics as Rural and Urban Increase (IV), Improvement of Agricultural Production (VII), Improving the Business Side of Farming (VIII), and Rural and Social Institutions and Their Improvement (XV and XVI). There are numerous tables and illustrations, including an interesting map of a rural Methodist parish.

One of the most interesting chapters is entitled Social Aspects of Land and Labor in the United States, though in the first paragraph the reader is confronted with the statement that “The nation’s population is ultimately determined by the amount of its arable land.” This is doubtless a casual statement and ought not to be allowed to mar what is otherwise an excellent chapter. Of course it is only the nation’s rural population which is ultimately determined by its arable land. So long as foreign markets hold out, there is no limit to the urban population short of lack of building room. Or one might say that the population of a nation which aims to be self-contained, or physically self-supporting as distinct from commercially self-supporting, is limited by its arable land. The reviewer does not remember to have seen so good a discussion of the problem of agricultural labor as is found in this chapter.

Probably the most valuable chapter is the one on Rural Health and Sanitation. The author outlines the problem and presents in systematic order the dangers to rural health and the methods of safeguarding against them. Under such heads as Water, Garbage and Sewage, Insects and Animals, Foods, and Transmissible Diseases, he sets forth the chief problems of farm sanitation, and emphasizes the need of co-operation in neighborhood sanitation.

The book is a substantial contribution to the growing problem of rural life and rural adjustment. The author shows a first hand knowledge of the subject which he treats, and a wide familiarity with statistical and other documentary sources of information. All sincere students owe him a debt of gratitude.

T. N. CARVER.

STARVING AMERICA

By ALFRED W. MCCANN. F. M. Barton. 270 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of
THE SURVEY $1.61.

This is an adulterating age. The organized exploitation of the primary wants of civilized mankind, the demand for products prepared for immediate consumption, the stimulation of new desires by unprecedented advertising campaigns, the conspicuous consumption of the rich and the unreasoning imitation of the richer by the poorer, the ever lengthening cycle of production from raw material to finished product, the fierce competition among manufacturers and dispensers of goods, the rising cost of living, and more than all, the amazing carelessness of the purchasing public, especially with regard to articles of food and clothing, have caused the adulterators to multiply and flourish and have developed adulteration to a fine art.

The exposure of various forms of food impurities and adulterants, harmless or criminal, is neither new nor unpublished. Few men in our country are better known than Harvey Wiley, and Wiley in the popular mind stands as the champion of pure food and the implacable foe of fraudulent food distributors. No person who reads or listens but knows something of Wiley and something of impure food supplies.

Mr. McCann, whose book under the sensational title of Starving America has recently appeared, is no less valiant than Wiley in his promulgation of pure-food propaganda. Almost unknown, unsupported by the scientific training and the official standing which Wiley possesses, this dark champion girds on his armor and heroically enters the lists, shouting, “I’ll tell the truth if I die for it.” Of course there’s no danger of his dying for it. Speaking logically, the conclusion seems to be that the rest of us will die of starvation if we refuse to heed his speaking.

In general the book supports two theses:

First, that the mineral constituents of foods are much more important in body building than food chemists and dietitians are aware; in fact, that we are either literally starving ourselves and our children by eliminating the ash from our bread, meat, potatoes, rice and other foods, or we are rendering our bodies susceptible to disease—such as tuberculosis—through failure to supply certain mineral defenses to the tissues. The essential ashes, always present in food stuffs—vegetable or animal—in their original raw state, are removed in the manufacture or in the cooking. Wholesome nutritious whole wheat bread and unpolished rice are set over against the insidious, emasculated, mineral-denuded white bread and polished rice—real whited sepulchers, beautiful but deadly.

In the development of this thesis Mr. McCann presents some facts already published and fully accepted, and an array of startling statements. Most of his reasoning is, of course, deductive, because scientists have little authentic data to offer on the effect of the various mineral elements or the lack of them, much less on the most desirable methods of introducing them into the human system. Though neither a university man, nor a graduate chemist, it appears that the author has had exceptional opportunities to study biochemistry as an amateur; and formerly, as advertising agent of a large food industry he spent much time in the food laboratory of the concern. Notwithstanding these qualifications, which he fully sets forth in his preface, some of his conclusions, for example the vital importance of ash in the system and the dire results of our ordinary dietary, though analogically sound, fail to convince the student and perhaps the layman.

On his second proposition, that an astonishing variety and an appalling quantity of our foods are poisonously adulterated both legally and criminally, the author stands on sure ground. Candies, ice-cream, extracts, patent medicines, preservatives, coloring materials are handled without reserve. The argument is supported almost wholly by old material, rather familiar to the magazine reading public; but the cumulative evidence, followed by a dissertation on the appalling and preventable infant death rate gives strength and conviction to the presentation.

The author is not merely destructive. He urges a campaign of education through the public press and pleads for courses and demonstrations of pure food stuffs and their effects in our schools and colleges. He has formulated a practical dietary, a daily menu for a week, of simple, wholesome food, based on the principles he has worked out, for children three years of age and over. His own children have thrived wonderfully on it. He describes in one of the most satisfactory chapters in the book an ideal restaurant that appeals both to one’s common sense and to his appetite.

On the whole the book is timely and deserves a wide reading. In the endeavor to catch the public ear by the presentation of a lurid array of facts under a sensational title I fear the author has overshot the mark. Thoughtful readers are likely to discount much that apparently has a reasonable basis of scientific study merely because of the overstraining after startling statement. The author’s style is not altogether pleasing, nor does it always carry conviction nor inspire confidence in the author. It is not a great book nor an epoch-making one, but it bears the stamp of sincerity, provided one reads to the end, and calls attention to a number of awful truths that should give us pause. The keynote of progress is “light and enlightenment,” rather than repression.

ALEXANDER E. CANCE.

THE THREE GIFTS OF LIFE

By NELLIE M. SMITH. Dodd, Mead & Co. 138 pp. Price $.50; by mail of
THE SURVEY $.56

The market is flooded with publications on education with reference to sex, and most of them are the product of superficial or one-sided knowledge and a ready pen. The emphasis is unduly put on disease because most writers are so impressed by the results of ignorance that they find it impossible to take the attitude of the normal, healthy individual whom they are trying to reach.

Among this mass of material, there have been two or three books which could be put into the hands of young girls, but even these should be used with care. The large demand for a good book and our failure to meet it has been a source of anxiety to all who have appreciated the dire need which it voiced. Then came The Three Gifts of Life, which answers the appeal for knowledge concerning the mysteries of reproduction, showing the origin of life in plants, animals and human beings—not detached as physiological fact but interwoven in ordinary experience.

The Three Gifts are the three attributes by which the different forms of life progress: i.e., dependence, as illustrated by plants; instinct, plus dependence, as shown by animals; choice, plus dependence and instinct, which are given to every human being.

Throughout the interesting account of plant and animal reproduction, Miss Smith is working through the law of progress to the girls’ responsibility in the life of the race, showing how the reproductive instinct can be made into a race instinct by means of the gift of choice. The one adverse criticism I should make is calling any gift of the flowers “poor” even in comparison. When the marvels of plant and animal life are being so wonderfully revealed, there is a singular opportunity to communicate the thrill and zest which come from close contact with Nature: there is nothing poor in the “scheme of things.”

The book does not warn girls against men’s companionship; it does not describe the horrors of venereal diseases; it does not frighten them into a fear of all mankind by giving the details of prostitution. It does not prophesy changes which take place during the adolescent period, so that attention will be concentrated on a whole new set of feelings which may or may not appear. On the contrary, it is all positive and sane, and is by far the best book we have for educational work with girls.

MARION E. DODD.

EVE’S OTHER CHILDREN

By LUCILLE BALDWIN VAN SLYKE. Fred’k A. Stokes. 275 pp. Price $1.00;
by mail of THE SURVEY $1.10.

Mrs. Van Slyke has chosen as her special field of interest the Syrian quarter of Brooklyn, and the result of her observations she has given us in a short dozen of stories, grouped under the title, Eve’s Other Children. With considerable skill and great charm, through the medium of little Nazileh, she permits us to see into the mind of the Oriental “within our gates.” Each tale illustrates some Syrian custom or legend or characteristic, picturesquely trying to maintain itself in this matter-of-fact “land of Brooklyn.”

Those looking for diversion will find it in these tales; those looking for something deeper will find that also. While the association of the Oriental with other immigrants is rather casually treated, the relation between the Syrian population and the Americans with whom they come in contact has been a matter of careful observation and thought on the part of the writer. Between the lines, one feels her protest against the current attitude toward this peculiarly sensitive alien. Teacher and social worker, as well as the Tommy O’Brien’s and Geraldine Schmidt’s of the neighborhood, constantly offend the little Syrians by referring to them as “dagos.” Throughout these stories, like a plaintive refrain, runs the explanation of little Nazileh: “Oxcuse—me, I ees not a dago—I Syreean!”

To deal rightly with these children it is not enough to study only the outward type. Not to blunder one must know the unique workings of their minds, their superstitions, their strong racial traits. To illustrate:

Baby Antar has a new tooth, to Nazileh a most important event. A certain native dish must be prepared to do the occasion justice. But she is so poor and her mother works so hard! Suddenly Nazileh remembers that “Teacher” has admired her Mashallah beads; she will give fifty cents for them. Without them, the child is defenseless before the “evil eye,” but a Syrian custom is at stake; she must not falter. The teacher buys them gaily, without suspicion that she has taken from the frightened child her most valued and valuable possession.

Nor is the philanthropist always understanding:

Nazileh’s most striking trait is her passionate love for her baby brother. Two ladies stop her ramshackle perambulator in the street. Antar has prickly heat. The ladies discuss ways and means; they talk of “district tickets” and “transfer stubs.” Then the awful word “Freshairfund” escapes them, and in a second two flying legs and four wobbly wheels are all that are seen of Nazileh and her precious burden. “That Freshairfun,” she gasps from a safe distance, “eet steal sweet little babees from their homes. I weesh”—she stopped in delight at the American oath she was about to utter—“I weesh a gosh on eet!”

It is a great pity to deal clumsily with the Oriental, for no one can lay down this book without feeling that there are exquisite qualities lurking in the Syrian quarter, qualities that we as a people need. Nazileh, gay, sad, loving, poetic, mischievous little girl, always courteous, never shrewd, seems to represent the best type of Syrian child. We need her filial devotion, her deference to old age, her fine hold on tradition in this rough and ready civilization of ours. Evidently the high tide of immigration that washes in so many problems, brings treasure also. How can we capture it?

With much that is beautiful and picturesque, the book leaves on our minds also the impression of great hardship, of overwork and underpay, of little children driven indoors out of the sunlight to ply a wearisome trade; of young girls fighting for existence in the misery of the sweat-shop.

But the author’s sympathetic understanding and charming interpretation of Oriental ideas, scenes, and customs mitigate the somberness even of the final tale, which gives the title to the book. The story is told by Nazileh’s sad young mother arrayed in bright Oriental garb for the Syrian Christmas, when the camel comes with gifts,—“And when Eve saw God coming, she hid all her unsightly children in a dark cave and only her pretty children were washed and dressed for God to see....” The lame, the halt, the blind, and those pursued of poverty,—these are “Eve’s Other Children.”

MARY BANNISTER WILLARD.

COMMUNICATIONS

TREAT BOTH ALIKE

TO THE EDITOR:

In most phases of life it is the little things that count. In the matter of prostitution we have heard so much about the big things—the inevitableness of it, because the man wants it, because the girl may have more money than her pay-envelope brings her, and the necessity for changing public opinion before any change in dealing with the situation can become effective—that we have become well-nigh overwhelmed by the magnitude of the evil. Yet, may we not expect shortly to gain public approval for two small and difficult yet perfectly feasible changes of method in handling the situation? These are my two suggestions:

1. When a house is raided, take all found in the house, women and men
and put their names on the police-blotter.

2. Then, examine these people for venereal disease. Restrain the
liberty of all the diseased, both women and men, till they are cured.

I am one of those heretics who are not particularly concerned with the exact law covering the matter at the present time in any particular place; it suffices me to know that not everywhere are these two regulations in force; nor does declaring unconstitutional the ordinances dealing with these things bother me. I am tremendously interested in seeing that these ideas get across.

When the public has made these two suggestions part of its conviction of the right way of doing things, then we will find the way to formulate workable, constitutional regulations embodying these suggestions.

“They” tell us that it is an infringement of the liberty of the individual when the women taken for soliciting or in houses are examined for disease. Most certainly it is. And practically all the other laws on our books curtail the liberty of the individual.

But, it is an infringement of the right of the community when men and woman with venereal disease go about freely. The community is interested in its own perpetuation. Therefore, it is interested that the prospective and the actual husband shall be just as clean from disease as the girl.

But, “they” say such handling of the situation does not meet the economic objection; these suggestions do not even attempt to provide more cash for the girl. Good, the suggestions do not solve the problem for her; that is just the point. She must solve it for herself. That is the only salvation worth having. Yet, not simply by herself and for herself. She will probably fail, if she attempts it alone. But, joining forces with other girls and working together, success will probably follow and there will probably be a greater amount of cash in the pay-envelope. That is worth most to the individual which is conquered into the person, not received as gift.

Putting these suggestions into practice will diminish greatly the number who “have to have it.” It will make sinning less popular.

MORGAN T. RILEY.

New York.

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION

TO THE EDITOR:

In your issue of March 22 there is a reference and quotation from the statement of “Principles and Policies that Should Underlie State Legislation for a State System of Vocational Education,” adopted at the December meeting of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education in Philadelphia, that tends to give a wrong impression of the attitude of the society regarding the matter of dual control referred to in Professor Dewey’s very clear and forcible article in the same issue.[4]

It may be stated without reservation that the executive committee of the society are unanimously of the belief that the best way to administer the new provisions for industrial education rapidly being enacted into laws in various states is by a state board of education which has all forms of education under its control.

The committee that developed the statement, however, recognized that in some states where no board of education exists and state control is represented by a superintendent of instruction, it is possible that the initial development of this new work may be best secured for a short period by a separate board of control. This point of view is embodied in a paragraph relating to state control in the statement of “principles and policies,” as follows:

“Effective administrative control, on the part of the state, of both
vocational and general education, requires the existence of a State
Board possessing sufficient powers, effectively to supervise all forms
of education receiving financial aid from the state. Should such a
board not exist, in any state, or should it be found that an existing
board is unprepared to deal effectively with the establishment and
promotion of vocational education, then it is expedient that a special
administrative Board of Control for Vocational Education shall be
established until such time as a state board properly qualified to
deal with all forms of state-aided education shall exist.”

The feeling of the representative committee which formulated the statement of “principles and policies” and which gave it careful consideration and discussion at the meeting at Philadelphia, was that such a separation of control while not desirable as a permanent arrangement, might under some circumstances be of value in effectively launching the new movement, might better secure a fair trial of new methods, and better arouse public opinion to its consideration.

The paragraphs quoted in THE SURVEY do not relate to the matter of state control, which is the point under discussion in Professor Dewey’s paper, but to the question of separateness of instruction being accorded vocational schools and classes. By separate organization in this connection is meant a separate school organization. Separation to this extent, it is safe to say, a great majority of teachers and other educators who have been intimately connected with real work in industrial education (not merely with manual training as an element in the general course of study), thoroughly believe in as essential to effective results in this field. Such separateness of organization as is specified in the quoted paragraphs, is typified by the organization of the Manhattan Trade Schools for Girls, by the New York Vocational School for Boys, and by the various other vocational schools at Rochester, Albany and Buffalo in this state, all of which are administered by regular local school boards.

C. R. RICHARDS.

[Director Cooper Union.]
New York.

TODAY IT IS SPRING

TO THE EDITOR:

Today it is Spring and in office and in schools, we find ourselves forgetting our work and leaning back to breathe the soft, warm air. Why is it that the Spring fever fills every one’s veins, and we find ourselves caring so little about the important interests upon which our minds were fixed. Why do we turn to dreaming of fields and blue distances and mornings when we discovered that some one was in love with us. On such days as these, for a few moments, the school-teacher _must_ stop schooling, the trader _must_ stop trading, the reformer _must_ stop reforming. What is the meaning of this? It is God’s holiday.

In these moments we learn one of the great lessons of life. After all, it is the cosmic forces that make the world. We learn the great lesson of trust. Little do our efforts accomplish to brighten and beautify the world. But when the Spring comes, even in Mulberry street the children sing and shout, and soft gray buds are ready to burst from the few trees in Alton Park Place.

In these moments we learn the highest, best in life: that which comes not from our own efforts but is the gift of God.

CLARENCE D. BLACHLY.

Chicago.

AN INVITATION FROM CUBA

TO THE EDITOR:

The Woman’s Club of Havana would be very grateful if when social workers of the United States anticipate visiting our city they would kindly let us know as we want to avail ourselves of any opportunity to get in touch with their work.

Our club is young and working under unusual circumstances. It is composed of Cubans and Americans. A cordial welcome and appreciative hearing would be given to any one willing to help us by speaking before the club.

We feel that all such courtesies not only strengthen the union between our countries but make for the better understanding and development of both.

IONE R. VAN GORDEN.