LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE AMONG 

 REFORMERS 



PUBLISHED IN THE "CENTURY," JUNE, 1900 



ONE of Miss Mary E. Wilkins's delightful 

 heroines remarks, in speaking of certain 

 would-be leaders of social reform in her village: 

 "I don't know that I think they are so much above 

 us as too far to one side. Sometimes it is longi 

 tude and sometimes it is latitude that separates peo 

 ple." This is true, and the philosophy it teaches 

 applies quite as much to those who would reform 

 the politics of a large city, or, for that matter, of the 

 whole country, as to those who would reform the 

 society of a hamlet. 



There is always danger of being misunderstood 

 when one writes about such a subject as this, be 

 cause there are on each side unhealthy extremists 

 who like to take half of any statement and twist it 

 into an argument in favor of themselves or against 

 their opponents. No single sentence or two is suffi 

 cient to explain a man's full meaning, any more than 

 in a sentence or two it would be possible to treat 

 the question of the necessity for, and the limitations 



(37) 



