CORROBORATIVE TESTIMONY

OHIO STATE BOARD OF CHARITIES.

Mansfield, Ohio,
August 17, 1898.

Mr. Horace Fletcher, Chicago, Ill.

My Dear Sir: Yours of the 15th inst. received; also proof sheets of your forthcoming publication, which I have read with great pleasure.

I heartily agree with you in the opinion that the children must first be cared for if we are to make any great progress in reducing crime.

In nearly all that I have written or spoken during the past twenty years upon this subject I have taken this position.

Five years ago, when I was in San Francisco and spent some days with Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, with whom I had had correspondence for several years, and with Mr. Crowley, Chief of Police, I was profoundly impressed with the power for good of the kindergartens as there administered.

The only way to make good character and good habits a foundation in the lives of growing children, which is the aim of the kindergarten, universal, is to make the training a part of our common school system, and I think that accomplishment must be our objective point.