I50 



HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



but you generally find one bed occupied by the 

 whole family. ... It is impossible to say how 

 fatal the result of that is. In the first place, it 

 is totally destructive of all benefit from education. 

 It is a benefit to the children to be absent during 

 the day at school, but when they return to their 

 houses, in one hour they unlearn almost everything 

 they have acquired during the day. . . . The 

 one-room system may go on very well while there 

 are a husband and wife and young children, but 

 when the children have reached the age of eight 

 or ten, and have to sleep in the same room as 

 their parents, or with others, from that hour the 

 consequences are most fearful both to their morals 

 and to their health. In the one-room system, 

 where the inmates are many, you cannot introduce 

 a sufficient amount of air. How remedy all this ? 

 You must either insist upon a man taking two 

 rooms, or else you must separate the children 

 from the adults. Either case seems to be an im- 

 possible supposition." 



Let us now consider conditions not yet fully 

 obsolete in this country. In 1879 the Tenement 

 House Act was passed. Testifying before the 

 same London Commission, Mr. H. C. Meyer, of 

 New York, said : "Prior to that act about ninety 

 per cent, of the city lot could be covered. The 



