The only marvel is that the stupid attempt to put the fine old wine
of traditional country life into the new bottles of the modern town
does not lead to disaster oftener than it does, and that the wine so
long remains pure and sparkling.

We cannot afford to be ungenerous to the city in which we live without
suffering the penalty which lack of fair interpretation always
entails. Let us know the modern city in its weakness and wickedness,
and then seek to rectify and purify it until it shall be free at least
from the grosser temptations which now beset the young people who are
living in its tenement houses and working in its factories. The mass
of these young people are possessed of good intentions and they are
equipped with a certain understanding of city life. This itself could
be made a most valuable social instrument toward securing innocent
recreation and better social organization. They are already serving
the city in so far as it is honeycombed with mutual benefit societies,
with "pleasure clubs," with organizations connected with churches and
factories which are filling a genuine social need. And yet the whole
apparatus for supplying pleasure is wretchedly inadequate and full of
danger to whomsoever may approach it. Who is responsible for its
inadequacy and dangers? We certainly cannot expect the fathers and
mothers who have come to the city from farms or who have emigrated
from other lands to appreciate or rectify these dangers. We cannot
expect the young people themselves to cling to conventions which are
totally unsuited to modern city conditions, nor yet to be equal to the
task of forming new conventions through which this more agglomerate
social life may express itself. Above all we cannot hope that they
will understand the emotional force which seizes them and which, when
it does not find the traditional line of domesticity, serves as a