THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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to their children in this respect, these wards of the nation should be transplanted to governmental homes of training. Vienna, Austria, presents us a fine object lesson in its care for its destitute orphans. The mayor of the city appoints the child a father, if it is a boy, among the good citizens of good standing, or a mother if it is a girl. These little ones are then boarded out at the expense of the city. But it is the duty of this appointed father or mother to look after the child’s welfare during its growing years, and see to its proper placing in life w r hen it is old enough to become self-sup­porting. This is an expense to the city, but is it so great an expense as it will be if the child grows into a criminal? If you are unscientific, you will condemn my next statement. The “ Destroyer ” of a home, whether it is a home that now exists or a home that could have existed, should be put to death. The law of Leviticus, when interpreted by science, is none too severe. It is a law given by a God of love and God of mercy. Through the investigations of the blood it is shown that the Bible statement of they twain are one flesh is not figuratively, but literally, true. The law is written in our members. One Adam and two or more Eves, one Eve and two or more Adams should be put to death.

The law of creation is a jealous law. Break the Divine plan, male and female, by a separation of interests, and the deterioration of both commences. There is an invis­ible current now unnamed between minds masculine and feminine that makes a com­plete, rounded world. A study of the mental action of each apart and then together makes this very apparent. Sever the current by a manner of life that does not con­tinuously touch the best in life of the other, and physical force predominates; it is then that deterioration of all faculties commences. The rounded mental world cut in twain by a separation of thoughts and interest shrinks back and uplifts into the ungainly capital letters I-I; stiff, angular, unbending, ungainly, repulsive, decided, imperative, narrow I, I.

How much sweeter the word “we.” We have to round our mouth to pronounce it. Two letters, w-e; tw r o in one. How much better when blended—two persons into one.

The patrician’s home in Greece furnished the gifted ones whom the nation delighted to honor; but the record of the twenty centuries between, show the com­moner as the leader of all the advanced work and thought of the world. The home of wealth offers every advantage that could insure sharpened instruments in the battle of human progress, but the lack of necessities which spur to action, renders the instru­ment useless. Whatever point the child of wealth may have had from good trainers, soon becomes rusted and dulled in the luxurious atmosphere. The world had but one Marcus Aurelius. This emperor, sleeping on the soldier’s hard cot in the open halls of the palace in preference to the enervating influence of the luxurious palace chambers, his plain living and high thinking, offers an object lesson that would be well for the patrician to study. He used his position and w r ealth as stepping-stones to higher statesmanship and purer philosophy.

Following the expression of Plato, he made his “body and soul draw together like two horses harnessed to a carriage.” His body, not tied to luxury, could match the speed of the noblest impulses of the soul. If government could take the boy today, as in the days of old, from the home of w r ealth, place him in barracks for daily drill and upon the ground with only the canopy of heaven over-head at night; or the girls at the same tender age of seventeen years, and place them with nurses who w r ould fol­low the same vigorous training, then would our thoughts turn again to the patrician home for leaders along the line of all advance. But it is to the homes of the middle class that the nation turns on an expectant look. Here is where our thoughts must center to estimate progress. It is while viewing these homes that the heart throbs and bounds with its limitless expectations.

Here is where we can boast. What other nations can show such an aggregation of intelligent homes as can America? And for them, what is the promise? The educa­tors have commenced to instill into the minds of the students the relative value of the