effort to make the city a healthful place in which to live.

"Sanitary science is knit up with the life-history of every nation and enters largely into the history of civilization. It figures largely in the Mosaic code of the Jewish race and its instructions and preventive measures as exemplified in that code have accounted for the greater comparative longevity of the Jews, for their extraordinary immunity from the recurring epidemics of the middle ages. Nations have been swept out of existence because of lack of public hygiene. The Greeks were a great nation for encouraging physical training, but they were unconcerned with reference to their manner of living and housing and the care of the sick and attributed the great epidemics which swept over them as visitations of angry gods." Is there not danger that in the Young Men's Christian Association we make the same mistake? Is there not incongruity in our teaching if we do not include the personal living and the communal life of our constituency in their relation to health?

It is, to say the least, a sobering reflection that over one-third of all the men who die between the ages of twenty and thirty die from a preventable disease; that 56,770 persons died of tuberculosis in the United States last year; that one-tenth of all the deaths are due to this cause; that the United States has three times as high a death rate of typhoid fever as England and Wales, and that thousands of babies die before reaching the age of five years. This high death rate is due to faulty public measures. Typhoid is largely due to a polluted water supply caused in main by an imperfect sewerage system. The terrible infant mortality, which is the shame of this nation, is due largely to poor milk. Pasteurized milk reduces the death rate greatly. Tuberculosis, the white plague of America, is cultured

and propagated by imperfect street cleaning and poor housing.

Thirty-eight different kinds of dust charge the air in the different industries, thirty-one of which are poisonous, and yet the workers breathe them, and this class of workers shows the highest death rate of all diseases of any group. It is said that 500,000 lives are sacrificed annually in our industries because life-saving apparatus is not provided and humane treatment accorded the industrial worker.

Child labor and the sweatshop, with all their physical and moral inquisition, add to the moral and physical degeneracy of the people of our cities. As some one has said, Herod is upon the throne, not a personal Herod, but the Herod of greed and ignorance who is slaying our babes and the first born of our homes.

Sanitary science has made great advances. The causes of disease have been discovered. The microbic theory of disease, discovered by Pasteur and Koch, has revolutionized our methods of fighting disease and staying epidemics. The later discovery that some forms of disease are conveyed by insects and rodents, such as malaria and yellow fever by mosquitoes, and the bubonic plague by rats, have provided a knowledge which only need the united efforts of public officials and the common people to make them practically unknown diseases. Boards of health and philanthropic institutions have done much to reduce the death rate. Tuberculosis alone in New York City was reduced forty per cent in twenty years. With the intelligent support of the citizens wonderful results could be accomplished. There are two reasons why the Young Men's Christian Association should teach community hygiene: The greatest need of the association is democracy. The membership is based upon selfish lines. Men come for what they can get rather than for what

I.

they can be or do. Joining the association does not mean enlisting with others in a great endeavor to help others. What is needed is the injection into the membership of an altruistic purpose. Public hygiene provides such a purpose. It involves their education in public needs. It enlists them in an endeavor to promote health and happiness, remove sickness and sorrow, provide comfort and well-being, ward off danger and death, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and promote more favorable conditions for the promotion of the Kingdom of God. It enlarges the scope of Christian service and provides an opportunity of pressing into service those young men who hitherto have been unrelated to the prosecution of Christian work. Hence such work will react favorably upon the association itself.

2. It provides an opportunity for the association to become a factor in civic righteousness, by educating young men with reference to the needs of the city and thus promoting their enlistment in service for the securing of better living and working conditions through public utilities.

To facilitate such instruction I am preparing a series of studies in personal and public hygiene. In these studies, which I am presenting at the request of the committee, I have endeavored to make them (1) short there are but fifteen lessons in personal hygiene and twelve in community hygiene. More men will enroll for a short course than for a long one and large numbers of men are desired. (2) The courses are nontechnical. Practically no anatomy or physiology is taught. An endeavor is made to relate the teaching to the men's present needs and to tell them how to meet them so as to alter living habits. We desire to relate the studies to life, to teach men to live hygienically and thus to make for efficiency. The knowledge on

the part of men in the simplest matters pertaining to personal hygiene is greatly limited and frequently fallacious.

The plan followed in each lesson is to make a number of statements which are most important in reference to the subject and frequently to make some personal application. Two text books are used, namely, “The Human Mechanism," by Hough and Sedgwick, and the "Efficient Life," by Gulick. The former is used as the text book chiefly and the latter for popular reading on the subject. Additional references are given for more complete study of each topic for the teacher of the course or advanced students. The text books cost $2.00 and $1.20 respectively. A smaller edition of the first text book can be used. This can be secured for $1.00. The books for extended reading vary in cost and their use is optional.

The course in personal hygiene involves one lesson each in the following subjects: Exercise, bathing, sleep and rest, fatigue, diet, constipation, treatment of colds, care of the teeth, care of nose, throat, and ear, hygiene of the feet, use of stimulants and drugs, hygiene of the eye, states of mind, and states of body. One study on sexual hygiene is added, as, being inserted as a part of a general course in personal hygiene, it represents a logical and pedagogical method of teaching the subject.

The course in community hygiene consists of the following subjects: Infectious diseases and their prevention, a study of some specific diseases and their transmission, hygiene of occupation, hygiene of traveling, adulteration of foods, air and its impurities, public disposal of garbage, ashes, and rubbish, disposal of sewage, the public water supply, public playgrounds, street cleaning, boards of health.

The arrangement of this course is attended with

considerable difficulty as there is so little available material. The text books are very limited in their discussion of the topics and do not include all the topics desired. "The Human Mechanism," by Hough and Sedgwick, is used, also "Town and City," by Jewett, and "Manual of Hygiene and Sanitary Science," by Wilson. The first mentioned is scant in material and the second is too elementary for men, though suggestive. The third costs $3.50, but is very complete. A splendid book on the subject is "Practical Hygiene," by Dr. Harrington, cost $4.25 net.

In teaching this course the club idea is suggested, and it is advised that wherever possible the city official in charge of the public utility referred to be invited to address the class following the regular study, and that a quiz be held following the address.

Practical questions are appended to each lesson, such as: What methods are street cleaning in your city? Are the methods efficient? What can you do about it? are so arranged as to develop action.

used with reference to
How is it controlled?
What are the needs?
The studies throughout

THE MORAL TRAINING OF THE NEW
AMERICANS

REV. FREDERICK H. MEANS

WINCHESTER, MASS.

This paper is intended to make clear just three things:

1. What the forces are which are now at work;

2. Places where enlarged effort is needed;

3. Methods of arousing public opinion.