ctable
employment, and are placed in a way to become useful Christian men and
women. Year after year the work goes on. Children are taken in every
day, if there is room for them, and are trained in virtue and
intelligence, and every year the "Home," as its inmates love to call it,
sends out a band of brave, bright, useful young people into the world.
But for its blessed aid they would have been so many more vagrants and
criminals.

The school averages about 450 pupils. In the twenty years of the career
of the Mission thousands have been educated by it. As I passed through
the various class-rooms I found children of all ages. In the
infant-class were little ones who were simply kept warm and amused. The
amusement was instructive, as well, as they were taught to recognize
various objects by the young lady in charge of them. They all bore
evidences of the greatest poverty, but they were unquestionably happy and
contented.

"Do you find harshness necessary?" I asked of the lady principal, who was
my guide.

"No," was the reply. "We rely upon kindness. If they do not wish to
stay with us, we let them go away in peace. They are mostly good
children," she added, "and they really love the school."

A little curly-headed girl came up to her as she was speaking:

"What does Louisa want, now?" she asked, encouraging the child with a
kind smile.

"Please, Mrs. Van Aiken," said the child, "Nelly Jackson wants another
cake."

Nelly Jackson was one of the tiniest and plumpest of the infant class I
had just inspected, and I had found her with a cake in hand at the time
of my visit. Mrs. Van Aiken hesitated a moment, and then gave the
desired permission.

"Cakes," she added, turning to me, "constitute one of our rewards of
merit for the little ones. When they are very good we give them
doll-babies at Christmas."

Says the Secretary in her last Report of the work of the Mission: "These
children have quick perceptions and warm hearts, and they are not
unworthy of the confidence placed in them by their teachers. All their
happy moments come to them through the Mission School, and kind hearts
and willing hands occasionally prepare for them a little festival or
excursion, enjoyed with a zest unknown to more prosperous children. . . .
An excursion to Central Park was arranged for them one summer
afternoon. The sight of the animals, the run over the soft green grass,
so grateful to eye and touch, the sail on the lake