have for
the unjust social condition of the people." She spoke as a doctor,
familiar with the appearance of the children when they went out and when
they came back. There are not wanting professional opinions showing most
remarkable cures to have resulted from even this brief respite from the
slum. The explanation is simple: it was the slum that was the real
complaint; with it the cause was removed and improvement came with a
bound. As to the moral and educational effect, Mr. Parsons thus answers a
clergyman who objected that "it will only make the child discontented with
the surroundings where God placed him:"

"I contend that a great gain has been made if you can only succeed in
making the tenement-house child thoroughly discontented with his lot.
There is some hope then of his getting out of it and rising to a higher
plane. The new life he sees in the country, the contact with good people,
not at arm's length, but in their homes; not at the dinner, feast, or
entertainment given to him while the giver stands by and looks _down_ to
see how he enjoys it, and remarks on his forlorn appearance; but brought
into the family and given a seat at the table, where, as one boy wrote
home, 'I can have two pieces of pie if I want, and nobody says nothing if
I take three pieces of cake;' or, as a little girl reported, where 'We
have lots to eat, and so much to eat that we could not tell you how much
we get to eat.'

"This is quite a different kind of service, and has resulted in the
complete transformation of many a child. It has gone back to its
wretchedness, to be sure, but in hundreds of instances about which I have
personally known, it has returned with head and heart full of new ways,
new ideas of decent living, and has successfully taught the shiftless
parents the better way."

The host's side of it is presented by a pastor in Northern New York, whose
people had entertained a hundred children: "They have left a rich blessing
behind them," he wrote, "and they actually gave more than they received.
They have touched the hearts of the people and opened the fountains of
love, sympathy, and charity. The people have read about the importance of
benevolence, and have heard many sermons on the beauty of charity; but
these have been quickly forgotten. The children have been an object-lesson
that will long live in their hearts and minds."

Not least among the blessings of the Fresh Air work has been the drawing
closer in a common i