TOWN LIFE AND ITS EFFECTS. 205 



question of proper dwellings for the masses, if private 

 enterprise fails to accomplish the abolition of slums. 

 We want philanthropists to purchase open spaces for 

 us, and to give to the City lungs for the free respiration 

 of its masses. So, also, we want wider facilities for 

 reasonable recreation, and especially for the working- 

 classes. More " People's Palaces" will result in fewer 

 gin-shops ; and greater facilities for cycling, football, 

 and other games will stave off physical degeneracy as 

 perchance nothing else will or can. Best of all, we 

 must teach the masses the laws of health. We must 

 see to it that in every school physiology and hygiene 

 and domestic economy are duly taught to the boys and 

 girls who are about to leave lessons for the duties of 

 the workaday world. 



I have often thought that a hygienic corps, modelled 

 on the plan of the Salvation Army, which could dive 

 into the slums and teach the masses the "A B C" of 

 health laws, would effect a reform for which we must 

 wait as things are. Meanwhile, we are awaking to 

 the knowledge that life may be made better and happier 

 for most of us than it at present is ; and in the larger 

 hope of the coming day of health we must learn to 

 labour and hardest of all to wait. 



