neglect, off the lives of myriads. They lift it as suddenly as one raises a stone and sets the creatures below into a panic: and this, apparently, is what happened in New York. The Report of Dr. Thomas Darlington, Commissioner of Health for 1905 (a copy of which is kindly lent to me by Mr. T. Sykes), shows that whereas in 1903 there were 32,525 children excluded for eye diseases, the number fell in 1905 to 8883—that the number of cases of contagious skin diseases fell from 4000 to 2018; and that whereas 21,100 were in a sadly neglected state in 1905 only 4692 were still doomed to live as human beings should not live. In short, the number of excluded children fell from 65,294 to 18,844; though the school population must have increased. All this seems to bear out the claim of the senior school doctor.
However, we need not dwell here on the American system—bold as it is. Let us turn from the West, with its courage and its gold, to the Far East, with its modest standard of life, and its soaring ideal! Japan has been in the whirlwind of reform. She begins however by an open confession. "We want school doctors," says the Education Report from Japan of 1903-4, "but we have not got enough trained men. We cannot make provision yet for all." Still, she
