one is so important as that of making regenerates out of degenerates.
The massing of people in large cities, the incoming of vast multitudes
from the impoverished masses of several European and Asiatic countries,
the tendency to interpret liberty as license, the contagious nature of
moral, as well as of physical, diseases combine to make it of the utmost
importance that American enterprise and moral force find ways and means
for accomplishing this transformation. The grand results of the movement
in New York city inspired by Jacob Riis; the fascinating benevolence of
the Roycroft Shop in East Aurora, N.Y.; the marvelous transfiguration of
character--I speak it reverently--at the George Junior Republic,
Freeville, N.Y., added to the College Settlement and kindred efforts
merely indicate what may be accomplished when philanthropy supplements
saying by doing, and when Christianity stands for the beauty of
wholeness and is satisfied with nothing less than the physical, mental
and moral conversions of all classes among the masses at home as well as
abroad, in the East as well as in the West.

A problem is primarily something thrown at us as a challenge for us to
see through it. To solve a problem is to loosen it so that it may be
looked into or seen through. Whatever contributes to the loosening of a
problem by throwing light upon the conditions is of value in aiding in
its solution, hence the publication of this study of the family of
Jonathan Edwards as a contrast to the Jukes.

A.E.W.

Somerville, Mass., _June 1, 1900_.