They argue in this wise, and wisely, too, from their point of view of the evils they aim to attack: "The churches cannot reach these people in the depths of slums, and the wretches will not come to the churches. Religion is the only means of combating sin, and we must take religion to these unfortunates even if we have to employ spectacular means to accomplish it."
The Salvation Army, the King's Daughters, private missions, and the several churches, together with the more recent experiments of College and Social Settlements among the "Submerged" have accomplished noble results in pioneering, but they need reinforcement to complete the work, and adequate co-operation must include a popular movement whose object shall not be less than a Strict Social Quarantine.
A shot is no better than its aim, irrespective of the force behind it. Partial measures are always ineffective in the same way that any faulty aim is ineffective.
Aim at anything short of Perfect Social Quarantine and you can have no quarantine at all.
By evidence of numerous experiments and the successful results which have been accomplished we are made bold to assert that the combined effort that has been put forth by the missions, by private charity, by the Salvation Army, and other detached bodies of altruists, if it had been applied to the aim of a Strict Social Quarantine, by means of ample crèches, kindergartens, manual-training and parental-farm schools, during the last twenty-five years of social experiments, would have cleared the social atmosphere of its malarial conditions, and to-day there might have been no Have-To-Be-Bads loose in the community.
Of all this restless striving to benefit mankind and purify social conditions, nothing else has been so successful in proving the error of the hypothesis of the "hopelessly submerged" as the kindergarten. The character-forming schools which have had opportunity to care for childhood from earliest perceptions until character has made an impression, have proven that it is absolutely unnecessary to have a Have-To-Be-Bad class at large and that the condemnation carried by the tradition is as unjust as it is cruel.
EVIDENCE.
Let us consider two bits of practical evidence which refute the hideous assumptions of Buckle, Malthus, and even the latter-day gloomy philosophers.
The examples are but echoes of the information from all directions where intelligent effort at character-building has been put forth. No one will deny the universality of the application and corroboration of this evidence without confessing inefficiency behind the effort that has failed of its purpose.
The following is an extract from a letter written by the Hon. William J. Van Patten, President of the Kurn Hattin Homes Farm School at Westminster, Vermont, to the author, in answer to a question as to the results of the New England experiment. The Kurn Hattin institution cares for children from all over New England, but receives most of its charges from the congested districts of the city of Boston.