472 On Sanitary Reform . [August, 
It is now some time since the English people became im- 
pressed with the feeling that it is better economy to expend 
public money upon elementary education than upon the 
maintenance of criminals undergoing imprisonment. Thus 
the public education has long since passed the experimental 
stage, and it is no longer an open question as to the public 
duty of providing a modicum of mental training fov the whole 
population . He would be a bold man who should stake his 
popularity by pandering to the prejudice of a still existing 
minority, in advocating a policy of retrogression. But 
though the machinery of elementary education is now re- 
garded as an established and inevitable faCt, there remains 
still a vast field open for educators, theoretical and practical, 
in the discussion of details and the application of statistical 
analysis. 
But in the case of sanitary improvements, or rather in 
the reduction of our social arrangements to the demands of 
sanitary law, this stage of public feeling has not yet been 
reached. The desire for improvement exists, but the public 
are not yet instructed in the principles of public health. 
Too many among us — not only average ratepayers, but 
guardians, teachers, magistrates, and medical officers — re- 
gard the appliances and regulations of sanitary science as 
having their sole raison d'etre in abnormal and extraordinary 
social conditions. By such persons these things are not 
looked upon as essential to healthy life. Thus we find that 
sudden and ill-advised attempts at sewerage, insufficient 
water-schemes, and the like, often take their origin from 
some panic which has seized upon the public mind, or from 
the effects of an epidemic. Work thus initiated cannot, of 
course, be so complete or so successfully applied to effeCt the 
desired end as that which is deliberately undertaken in the 
“ quietness of thought,” and as matter of principle always 
binding upon society. What should we think of the captain 
who had his vessel put in trim for fair weather, and then 
set off to sea on the assumption that fair weather would 
continue throughout the voyage ? Yet this has been too 
much the method of procedure adopted by those who have 
had the care of public health placed in their hands. And 
any man who proposes the arrangement and construction of 
a town upon true sanitary law will for a long time be re- 
arded as a dreamer and an enthusiast. 
