dense than in the scattered condition. There can be no doubt,
however, that the practically complete separation of the most of our
cities from all educative contact with the ancient companions and
helpers of men brings about an omission of an element in culture that
may entail serious consequences.

The question arises as to what can be done to diminish the evils
which come from the total separation of a large part of our people
from the humanizing influences due to the care of animals. How
general this separation is may be judged from the fact that so far as
I have been able to find in the manufacturing towns of Massachusetts
not one child in thirty ever knew what it is to care for any
creature, save those of its kind. And even in a well-conditioned
place like Cambridge, the proportion of those who have any educative
contact with animals probably does not exceed one in fifteen. I do
not reckon the mere chance playing with a dog or cat as serving the
need; the real service is when the person has a sense of
responsibility for the life of the animal. To bring about this
relation in the ordinary conditions of a town is usually impossible.
Something can, however, be accomplished by various expedients.

In the lowest state of townspeople it is out of the question to give
the children any pets whatever. Even caged birds cannot or should not
be accommodated in the cheaper grade of lodging-houses. Wherever the
animals are in separate houses it is often possible for children to
have some contact with sympathetic animal life. In these conditions,
our cocks and hens are the best creatures to rear. They are the most
attractive of all our domesticated birds; they do better than any
other forms of economic value in narrow conditions, and, what is of
importance for the end in view, they contribute a share of food, so
that a boy may have from them some experience with the economic
relation of animals to men.

Some persons who have observed the advancing process of destruction of
the natural world may have been brought to consider the change as in the
necessary and inevitable order which comes with the higher development
of man. They may welcome--indeed, some evidently do welcome--the chance
that the ancient system may utterly disappear, and all the earth become
fields and garden places tenanted only by those forms that man may have
chosen to be his companions. To many people who have a keen impression
as to the importance of man in