In Man's ceaseless experimentation with his growing mental and physical equipments, and with the exterior forces of Nature, he has discovered that he can gather and direct the lightning; cultivate a skimpy wild flower into the imperial chrysanthemum; care for the elemental horse of his earliest discovery until it has developed into the "Black Beauty" of the present day; and, "last but not least," within only one brief quarter of one brief century, he has discovered that his greatest possibility of happiness lies in his power to make good and useful citizens of all his family.
Happiness is the evidence and fruit of conscious usefulness. Usefulness in adding to the sum of usefulness is, therefore, the best fruit of effort, and child culture produces such fruit in abundance.
God reveals, therefore, in His Work, what is not contradicted in His Word, when interpreted aright, that He creates all things good, subject to the possibility of Man to cultivate and harmonize and points out, as of first importance, a plant which has stored within it possibilities of endless further cultivation, of itself, and all else in Creation—the plant which we call a child.
Shall society do its duty to all of these or only such as chance has favored with superior parentage?
Have we not arrived at the point of concrete intelligence when we should assist in the fulfillment of the prophecy, "And the Last Shall Be First," coupled with that other prophecy of the Master of our Christian Civilization, "And a Little Child Shall Lead Them."
And finally, the way?
Ninety-eight per cent. of the condemned and neglected "Hopelessly submerged ten per cent. stratum" of cruel tradition, have been reclaimed by present methods of care, and one hundred per cent. can be saved to useful citizenship by means of prevention instead of correction. One one-hundredth of present incomes of one-half the people saved from waste and applied to thorough quarantine will prevent the causes which now result in ten times the amount being swallowed up in futile attempts at correction by means of punishment, and which do not give either security from assault or protection from the curse of unsafe, unsanitary and uncleanly conditions.