The aim should be to locate the cases of worst need first, and work back towards the avenues and boulevards. By this means the work would begin at the base of neglect; and it is proven by experience that much of the intermediate indifference corrects itself, as a result of a good example being set on the social terrace next below.
There is only one stratum of abject depravity and hopelessness, and that is a very thin stratum, with only detached specimens visible. Begin with that, and the strata above it, in which there must be some admixture of self-respect, if you excite it by example, will begin to do for themselves what you wish to do for them.
It is the same relative to conditions of cleanliness. Dirt does not originate in the avenues or in the boulevards, but it blows there, or is dragged there from the slums, through the intermediate sections, making cleanliness helpless, and hopeless to each quarter except by beginning to clean the deepest slums first.[8]
Moral and physical carelessness beget and stimulate each other. You cannot correct one without favorably affecting the other. Social Quarantine embodies both Moral and Sanitary Quarantine.
Present methods of conveying clean suggestion into the body of Society may well be illustrated by trying to introduce the quality of purity into a tree, by forcing it into the leaves against the current of the sap, in order to reach the branches, trunk, and roots. The method proposed contemplates placing drops of suggestion, like aniline, at the roots of the tender shoots, in order that they may course freely with the sap by natural process of growth. The old method meets with constant protest and opposition. The proposed method meets with no opposition at all.
The progressive nations can produce sufficient means to furnish the world with teachers and missionaries, and to wage foreign wars against inhumanity and neglect, in addition to supporting home quarantine, but the natural and easy method of procedure is to work from within and extend outward.
[8] ] I was walking in a country lane in England with Julian Ralph, the American author, after having received, and just read, a batch of mail. In thoughtless absorption I crumpled an envelope in my hand and was on the point of throwing it away, when Ralph caught me by the arm and shouted: "Great goodness, man! Don't do that! You'll spoil England." The force of the suggestion was such that since that time I never think of throwing anything broadcast, but put waste paper, or whatever else I may accumulate, away, often in my pocket, till I can place it in a proper receptacle or in the fire. The other day, at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, while on the water, as a result of Ralph's suggestion, I found myself refraining from throwing waste in the water; it was so pure and clear. Why not start children with such a suggestion instead of those begotten of sheer carelessness?—[The Author.]