Appreciation is necessary as well as a subject to be appreciated; and the onlooker at social work may be most helpful. If he is to be helpful he must be kindly and charitable, as well as watchful. Rancorous and ill-informed criticism must be avoided, and the onlooker must be ready to do justice to good work, or attempted good work. Nothing has made it so difficult to secure good men to undertake the burden of local government as the undiscriminating and uncharitable criticism aimed at those engaged in it. Criticism of representatives has often been deserved; but critics are too often those who will not aid to the slightest extent in the work which, often without sufficient knowledge of the facts, they vilify. When we read of administrative scandals, it is desirable to have a sense of proportion, and to remember, as the reader of old records or even of Pepys’ diary will scarcely need to be reminded, that corruption was rampant in the past, and especially to remember that the best way to remove that most subtle and mischievous form of corruption which consists in giving and accepting appointments as political rewards, is by ourselves taking a part in local government, or by steadily upholding those who are doing so with integrity. The onlooker, then, has his duty to perform as well as the administrator. He cannot do his duty unless he intelligently studies local administration, even though he takes no part in it. A chief need is this interested study of the phases of local administration by the general inhabitants of each district. Happily there are indications of the increasing local patriotism which such study implies. The exact knowledge thus acquired is the best means of neutralising much of the ill-natured, because ill-informed, criticism with which the founts of local administration are too often fouled. A high moral ideal on the part of onlookers as well as of administrators is needed if we are to secure that high standard of social efficiency which is an indispensable condition of the further triumphs of preventive medicine now waiting to be secured. _Ideals_ In my discussion of the difficulties of health progress, I have evidently encroached here and there on the second division of my lay sermon. Let me now attempt to state more systematically some ideals of health and means for their realisation.