Labor question came first under discussion, and
resulted in the establishment in every state of a Board of Arbitration
that fixed the price of labor on a per cent, of the profits of the
business. Public and private charities were forbidden by law as having
an immoral influence upon society. Charitable institutions had long been
numerous and fashionable, and many persons engaged in them as much for
their own benefit as that of the poor. It was not always the honest and
benevolent ones who became treasurers, nor were the funds always
distributed among the needy and destitute, or those whom they were
collected for. The law put a stop to the possibility of such frauds, and
of professional impostors seeking alms. Those who needed assistance were
supplied with work--respectable, independent work--furnished by the city
or town in which they resided. A love of industry, its dignity and
independence, was carefully instilled into every young mind. There is no
country but what ought to provide for everyone of its citizens a
comfortable, if not luxurious, home by humane legislation on the labor
question.

"The penitentiaries were reconstructed by the female government. One
half the time formerly allotted to labor was employed in compulsory
education. Industrial schools were established in every State, where all
the mechanical employments were taught free. Objects of charity were
sent there and compelled to become self supporting. These industrial
schools finally became State Colleges, where are taught, free, all the
known branches of knowledge, intellectual and mechanical.

"Pauperism disappeared before the wide reaching influence of these
industrial schools, but universal affluence had not come. It could not
exist until education had become universal.

"With this object in view, the Government forbade the employment of any
citizen under the age of twenty-one, and compelled their attendance at
school up to that time. At the same time a law was passed that
authorized the furnishing of all school-room necessaries out of the
public funds. If a higher education were desired the State Colleges
furnished it free of all expenses contingent.

"All of these measures had a marked influence in improving the
condition of society, but not all that was required. The necessity for
strict sanitary laws became obvious. Cities and towns and even farms
were visited, and everything that could breed malaria, or produce impure
air, was compelled to