to elevate the race above
the tyranny of this tremendous appetite.

CHAPTER VII.

ORGANIZATION OF A REMEDY.

In New York, we believe almost alone among the great capitals of the
world, a profound and sustained effort for many years has been made to
cut off the sources and diminish the numbers of the dangerous classes;
and, as the records of crime show, with a marked effect.

In most large cities, the first practical difficulty is the want of a
united organization to work upon the evils connected with this lowest
class. There are too many scattered efforts, aiming in a desultory
manner at this and that particular evil, resulting from the condition of
the children of the streets. There is no unity of plan and of work.
Every large city should form one Association or organization, whose sole
object should be to deal alone with the sufferings, wants, and crimes,
arising from a class of youth who are homeless, ignorant, or neglected.
The injuries to public morals and property from such a class are
important enough to call out the best thought and utmost energy and
inventiveness of charitable men and women to prevent them. Where an
association devotes itself thus to one great public evil, a thousand
remedies or ingenious devices of cure and prevention will be hit upon,
when, with a more miscellaneous field of work, the best methods would be
overlooked. So threatening is the danger in every populous town from the
children who are neglected, that the best talent ought to be engaged to
study their condition and devise their improvement, and the highest
character and most ample means should be offered to guarantee and make
permanent the movements devised for their elevation.

The lack of all this in many European capitals is a reason that so
little, comparatively, has been done to meet these tremendous dangers.

Then, again, in religious communities, such as the English and American,
there is too great a confidence in _technical religious_ means.

We would not breathe a word against the absolute necessity of
Christianity in any scheme of thorough social reform. If the Christian
Church has one garland on its altars which time does not wither nor
skepticism destroy, which is fresh and beautiful each year, it is that
humble offering laid there through every age by the neglected little
ones of society, whom the most enlightened Stoicism despised and
Paganism cast out, but