Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/183

 I thought it might be done in a shorter period, hut I have found myself under the necessity of extending the term from time to time. I fear now that Steffens's estimate of the length of Jones's program was rather short, but I know of no other way that the program can be carried out. Steffens himself is not so impatient now; he learned much more about our cities than he ever wrote or dared to write, much no doubt that he could not write. Great as was the data he collected, before all the conclusions could be drawn, all the general rules deduced, it would be necessary to have the data of all life, of which the cities are microcosms. The subject, after all, is rather large.

But to some it seemed simple enough; were there not policemen patroling their beats ready to arrest the bad people? Thus in the early days of the awakening in America impatience took on the form it always takes with us, and men flew to the old idols of our race, the constable and the policeman; someone must be hounded down, someone must be put in prison. This was the form which the awakening took in many places, and many reputations were built up in that wretched work, and perhaps the inadequacy of the work is best demonstrated by the instability of the reputations. I suppose that such efforts do accomplish something, even though it be at such fearful cost; they may educate some, but mostly they seem to me to gratify a taste for cheap sensation and reward that prurient curiosity which has always made the contemplation of sin so very fascinating to our race. The reformer was abroad,