r and re-alter the framework of a
state or of a state's activity as you would patch up a ruinous old
house. If you work at all in any department, you should wish to work on
a massive, well-considered plan, so that what you do may last. It is not
likely, therefore, that, in the great field of suffering which the war
has laid open to us, the public ministries will either be so quickly or
so perfectly adjusted as to make private ministries a superfluity.

Neither do we reflect enough upon the limitations of human power. We
think sometimes of Government as a great living organism of boundless
resources. But, after all, in any department of state, what plans, what
overlooks, what vitalizes, is one single human mind. And it is not easy
to get minds anywhere clear enough and capacious enough for the large
duties. It is easy to obtain men who can command a company well. It is
not difficult to find those who can control efficiently a regiment.
There are many to whom the care of five thousand men is no burden; a few
who are adequate to an army corps. But the generals who can handle with
skill a hundred thousand men, and make these giant masses do their
bidding, are the rare jewels in war's diadem. Even so is it in every
department of life. It is perhaps impossible to find a mind which can
sweep over the whole field of our medical operations, and prepare for
every emergency and avoid every mistake; not because all men are
unfaithful or incapable, but because there must be a limit to the most
capacious intellect. Looking simply at the structure of the human mind,
we might have foreseen, what facts have amply demonstrated, that in a
war of such magnitude as that which we are now waging there always must
be room for an organization like the Sanitary Commission to do its
largest and noblest work.

But, above and beyond all such reflections, there are great national and
patriotic considerations which more than justify, yea, demand, the
existence of our war charities. Allowing that the outward comfort of the
soldier (and who would grant it?) might be accomplished just as well in
some other way,--allowing that in a merely sanitary aspect the
Government could have done all that voluntary organizations have
undertaken, and have done it as well as they or better than they,--even
then we do not allow for a moment that what has been spent has been
wasted. What is the Sanitary Commission, and what are kindred
associations, but so many bonds o