nded on Plymouth Rock, in search of that liberty in thought
and action denied in the old world. The gloomy panorama of misery and
crime moves on, a dark picture in this young civilization.

If we would use the same common sense in the improvement of mankind
that we do in the ordinary affairs of life, we should begin our work
at the foundations of society, in family life, in parenthood, the
source and centre of all these terrible evils whose branches we are
trying to lop off. A family living in an old house, on unhealthy
ground, with water in the cellar, a crumbling foundation, the beams
like sponge, the roof leaking, the chimney full of cracks, would not
spend large sums of money year after year, generation after
generation, in patching up the old house on the same old spot, but
with ordinary wisdom and economy, they would build anew, on higher
ground, with strong foundations, sound timber, substantial chimneys,
and solid roofing. True, they would patch up the old at as little cost
as possible, merely to afford them a shelter until the new home was
built. And all our special reform work to-day is but patching the old,
until with a knowledge of the true laws of social science we can begin
to build the new aright. There is much surface work we must do in
reform, for decency's sake, but all this patching up of ignorant,
diseased, criminal, unfortunate humanity is temporary and transient,
effecting no radical improvement anywhere. The real work that will
tell on all time and the eternities, is building the new life and
character, laying the foundation-stones of future generations in
justice, liberty, purity, peace, and love, the work of the rising
generation of fathers and mothers at this hour. Those of us who have
long since passed the meridian of life, can give you the result of our
experience and researches into social science, but with the young men
and women of this hour rests the hope of the higher civilization which
it is possible for the race to attain through obedience to law. The
lovers of science come back to us from every latitude and longitude,
from their explorations in the mineral, vegetable, and animal
kingdoms, from their observations of the planetary world, bearing the
same message. "All things are governed by law," while man himself who
holds in his own hand the key to all knowledge and power seems never
to be in unison with the grandeur and glory of the world in which he
lives. The picture of struggling