208 EUEAL LIFE IN CANADA 



States. Their number as tabulated is in the neighbor- 

 hood of seventy. The order of their appearance, and 

 especially their rapid increase with each decade, is 

 instructive. The six decades before 1880 gave rise to 

 13; the decade of the eighties to 4; of the nineties to 

 12 ; the opening decade of this century to 39. Earliest 

 among those named — the earlier associations for the 

 reform of the drunkard are not included — came an 

 association for the care of the insane, then one for the 

 prevention of illiteracy; the American Association for 

 the Instruction of the Blind followed after an interval ; 

 and then, rapidly, the American Prison Association, 

 the Public Health Association, the Women's Christian 

 Temperance Union, the Purity Alliance, the Associa- 

 tion for the Eeeble-Minded, and the National Confer- 

 ence on Charities and Correction. The eighties gave 

 rise to the Red Cross Association and the Chris- 

 tian Social Union. The nineties brought social 

 settlements, women's councils, the National Coun- 

 cil of Mothers, the Anti-Saloon League, and move- 

 ments for regulation of industries and of immigration. 

 After 1900 came a host of movements for the preven- 

 tion of child labor, of infant mortality, of blindness, 

 of tuberculosis ; for the education of backward chil- 

 dren, of negroes, the care of delinquents, of epileptics ; 

 for the suppression of the white slave traffic, and pre- 

 vention of infant mortality. The various denomina- 

 tions organize for social service — ^the Presbyterian 

 Church's Department of Church and Labor ; of Church 

 and Country Life ; the Methodist Federation for Social 

 Service ; the Industrial Committee of the National 

 Council of Congregational Churches, the Social Service 

 Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the 



