until Mr. Valentine comes. No, I'm not a socialist. But I can't help
feeling that there's SOME solution for a wretched problem like that
over there," a wave of the hand indicated Old Paloma, "and perhaps,
dabbling aimlessly about in all sorts of places, one of us may hit
upon it."

"But I thought the modern theory was against dabbling," said Mrs.
Brown, a little timidly, for she held a theory that she was not
"smart." "I thought everything was being done by institutions, and
by laws--by legislation."

"Nothing will ever be done by legislation, to my thinking at least,"
Mrs. Burgoyne said. "A few years ago we legislated some thousands of
new babies into magnificent institutions. Nurses mixed their
bottles, doctors inspected them, nurses turned them and washed them
and watched them. Do you know what percentage survived?"

"Doesn't work very well," said the doctor, shaking a thoughtful head
over his pipe.

"Just one hundred per cent didn't survive!" said Mrs. Burgoyne. "Now
they take a foundling or an otherwise unfortunate baby, and give it
to a real live mother. She nurses it if she can, she keeps near to
it and cuddles it, and loves it. And so it lives. In all the
asylums, it's the same way. Groups are getting smaller and smaller,
a dozen girls with a matron in a cottage, and hundreds of girls
'farmed out' with good, responsible women, instead of enormous
refectories and dormitories and schoolrooms. And the ideal solution
will be when every individual woman in the world extends her
mothering to include every young thing she comes in contact with;