h those elegancies which elaborate architecture and
the other fine arts furnish, he might have been even more severely
criticised. He would have been spending the gifts of the poor who often
sorely denied themselves for the sake of these orphans, to purchase
embellishments or secure decorations which, if they had adorned the
humble homes of thousands of donors, would have made their gifts
impossible. When we remember how many offerings, numbering tens of
thousands, were, like the widow's mites, very small in themselves, yet,
relatively to ability, very large, it will be seen how incongruous it
would have been to use the gifts, saved only by limiting even the wants
of the givers, to buy for the orphans what the donors could not and
would not afford for themselves.

Cleanness, neatness, method, and order, however, everywhere reign, and
honest labour has always had, at the orphan houses, a certain dignity.
The tracts of land, adjoining the buildings, are set apart as
vegetable-gardens, where wholesome exercise is provided for the orphan
boys, and, at the same time, work that helps to provide daily food, and
thus train them in part to self-support.

Throughout these houses studious care is exhibited, as to methodical
arrangement. Each child has a square and numbered compartment for
clothes, six orphans being told off, at a time, in each section, to take
charge. The boys have each three suits, and the girls, five dresses
each, the girls being taught to make and mend their own garments. In the
nursery, the infant children have books and playthings to occupy and
amuse them, and are the objects of tender maternal care. Several
children are often admitted to the orphanage from one family, in order
to avoid needless breaking of household ties by separation. The average
term of residence is about ten years, though some orphans have been
there for seventeen.

The daily life is laid out with regularity and goes on like clockwork in
punctuality. The children rise at six and are expected to be ready at
seven, the girls for knitting and the boys for reading, until eight
o'clock, when breakfast is served. Half an hour later there is a brief
morning service, and the school begins at ten. Half an hour of
recreation on the playground prepares for the one-o'clock dinner, and
school is resumed, until four; then comes an hour and a half of play or
outdoor exercise, a half-hour service preceding the six-o'clock meal.
Then the girls ply the