Some are worse. I bought the furniture out of a room, just as it
stood, and had the whole place copied in detail."

Three of the visitors looked at each other.

"Imagine a tired woman," continued Mary, "standing over that
stove--perhaps expecting another baby before long. She has been washing
all morning and now she is cooking. The room is damp with steam, the
ceiling dotted with flies. Then imagine a child crawling around the
floor, its mother too busy to attend to it, and you'll get an idea of
where some of these children in the nursery would be--if they weren't
here. Mind," she earnestly continued, "I'm not saying that home life for
poor children doesn't have its advantages, but we mustn't forget that it
has its disadvantages, too."

She led them next to the kindergarten.

A recess was on and the children were out in the play-ground--some
swinging, some sliding down the chutes, others playing in a
merry-go-round which was pushed around by hand.

"Every other hour they have for play," said Mary. "In the alternate hours
the teachers read to them, talk to them, teach them their letters, teach
them to sing and give them the regular kindergarten course. If they
weren't here," she said, half turning to Professor Marsh, "most of them
would probably be playing on the street."

The next place they visited was the dining room--which occupied the upper
floor of one of the great buildings which Mary's father had planned. But
to look at it, you would never have suspected the original purpose for
which the place had been intended. It was a dining room that any hotel
would be glad to call its own, with its forest-colour decorations, its
growing palms and ferns on every side.

"The compartments around the walls are for the families," explained Mary.
"It is, of course, optional with those who work here whether they use the
dining room or not. We supply all food at cost. This was this morning's
breakfast."

The bill of fare is too long to quote in full, but the visitors noted
that it included a choice of fruit, choice of cereal, choice of tea,
coffee, milk or cocoa--and for the main dish, either fish, ham and eggs,
oyster stew or small steak.

"What you have seen so far," said Mary, "is a side issue. Many of our
workers are young women not yet married, others have some one at home to
look after the children. In fact the woman with a baby or little children
is in the minority, but I thought it only right to provide for them-