The placing on the force of each town of at least one specially trained “Explainer” would result in cleaner back yards and less illness and, better than all else, a more friendly feeling between the officials and those they honestly wish to help; for I do not think there is often justification for such remarks as were made to me by a shrewd California countryman when I was showing him about in the traveling exhibit, the sanitation car: “Oh, this is all to get a job. It’s another form of graft--to get some money to spend.” It is true that the value of many health measures does not appear on the surface. Sometimes it is necessary to wait for vital statistics to prove a gain. It is beginning to be thrown in the faces of sanitary authorities that the laboratory wisdom does not reach the street; that there is not enough, or rapid enough, improvement in general conditions. Newspapers are ready, for the most part, to disseminate information and benevolent societies write tracts, but we must remember how little WORDS mean--especially printed words--to those unaccustomed to acquiring information that way. The actual showing in an alley of the process of cleaning up; the going into a house and opening the windows at the top and tacking on a wire netting to keep out the flies; the actual cleaning of the garbage pail, perhaps, or at least the standing by and seeing that it is properly done--all such actual doing, even if it is done only in one house on a street, will spread the information all over the neighborhood. One of the most helpful offices is to tell the woman where she can get the special article needed, and what it will cost, and to show her the thing itself, in a friendly spirit. Such visits would soon revolutionize the sanitary condition of any community. Villages need this help even more than cities, for there they have fewer chances to know about inventions and perhaps are less resourceful in making them. There may be races, as there are individuals, whom persecution drives to progress--who do find means to execute unjust commands--but the people a health officer has to deal with can be better led by kindness and will learn from teachers, if the teaching is in the form of example or demonstration. It is an incontrovertible fact that to hasten sanitary reform it is only necessary to hold out the helping hand; to encourage the ignorant citizen to ask for instruction and direction, instead of placing upon him the task of making bricks without either clay or straw. There are times and seasons and individuals at which and on whom the bludgeon must be used--the greater good covering the lesser evil; but such cases are less common than present practice would seem to indicate. The tenement house mother who has only one pan for all her needs and one broken pitcher for all fluids does not readily understand why she must keep her milk bottle for milk only. Who is to tell her so that she will understand?