The moral effect of saving The Last Waif from neglect would, in itself, be much greater than the saving of hundreds of stray waifs by less thorough means, and the beneficial influence of a moral wave, such as the establishment of Perfect Social Quarantine would produce, would be felt in raising the average efficiency of family instruction in character-building in the same proportion that a complete thing is superior to anything that is weak in some of its parts. A resultant effect would be the establishment of Dirt Quarantine and Sanitary Quarantine Measures on lines of parallel efficiency, as already proven by the influence of kindergarten work in slums, for cleanliness begets cleanliness as surely as dirt begets dirt.
The wave of humanitarian sentiment that demanded freedom for Cuba cost the American people more than a million of dollars a day, and without hardship to any except those who endangered their lives in fighting for the cause.
The cost of saving the helpless neglected ones at home, and the establishment, for all time to come, of that first requisite of civilization, a perfect Moral and Social Quarantine, would be but a tithe of the cost of war with Spain, while all the outlay would be returned to the people and devoted to Construction, instead of being wasted in Destruction, as is necessary in the case of war.
The gaps of neglect in the present partial attempts at character-building and habit-forming for children, which are the bases of moral and social quarantine, are not very wide, as compared with what has already been accomplished for protection, but they are as dangerous and expensive as would be an open seaport during a season of yellow fever epidemic. These gaps can be closed by the judicious placing of a few more character and habit institutions where they are needed to supplement those already established, especially in the midst of the slums of great cities, where idleness, disorder and crime are wont to breed in neglect.
These institutions would, of necessity, have to be scattered about in such a manner that no child (apprentice citizen) in need of them could escape the influence of their profitable suggestions with which to supplement or counteract the influence of suggestions received at home.
A perfect cordon of care is of utmost importance during the period of life following earliest perceptions, until character is beginning to crystallize, and this is the season of present neglect.