Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/763

 CONCERNING A MINOR REFORM IN INDIANA 749

shall be the value of the saving we may expect in manhood and womanhood in lessening the blighting and degrading effects of pauperism which the new law will make possible when it is better known and acted on ? When we dwell on this side of the question, it makes us pause as to whether we should call this result of ten years' slow, steady, patient work a minor reform. It was the work of a board of state charities, begun by one secre- tary, carried on by a second, and completed by a third ; never hasting, never resting, steadily pressing on, always ready for each opportunity to gain a step, even a small one. Is it any wonder that at the state conference last mentioned, when the third secretary of the sequence made the report, the second one should turn to the first, who sat just behind him, and say : "Old man, life has its compensations" ?

ALEXANDER JOHNSON. FORT WAYNE, IND.