PREFACE. 



Of all the problems which America faces on the land 

 and on the seas, no one is so important as that of making 

 regenerates out of degenerates. The massing of people 

 in large cities, the incoming of vast multitudes from the 

 impoverished masses of several European and Asiatic coun- 

 tries, the tendency to interpret liberty as license, the con- 

 tagious nature of moral, as well as of physical, diseases 

 combine to make it of the utmost importance that American 

 enterprise and moral force find ways and means for accom- 

 plishing this transformation. The grand results of the 

 movement in New York city inspired by Jacob Riis ; the 

 fascinating benevolence of the Roycroft Shop in East Aurora, 

 N. Y. ; the marvelous transfiguration of character I speak 

 it reverently at the George Junior Republic, Freeville, N. 

 Y., added to the College Settlement and kindred efforts 

 merely indicate what may be accomplished when philan- 

 thropy supplements saying by doing, and when Christianity 

 stands for the beauty of wholeness and is satisfied with 

 nothing less than the physical, mental and moral conver- 

 sions of all classes among the masses at home as well as 

 abroad, in the East as well as in the West. 



A problem is primarily something thrown at us as a chal - 

 lenge for us to see through it. To solve a problem is to 

 loosen it so that it may be looked into or seen through. 

 Whatever contributes to the loosening of a problem by 

 throwing light upon the conditions is of value in aiding in 

 its solution, hence the publication of this study of the 

 family of Jonathan Edwards as a contrast to the Jukes. 



A. E. W. 



Somerville, Mass.. June 1, 1900. 



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