The great oriental nations which are now assimilating the civilization of the West are protected from moral dissolution by the strength of their institutions and the loyalty with which they cherish them. In this way their system of life, and the individuals who embody it, preserve their continuity and self-respect; but even in China and Japan the process is trying and, by all accounts, involves a good deal of demoralization. It is the same story of the discrediting of old ethics before the new has developed, and of the spread of a somewhat licentious individualism. In India also degeneracy is rife among the numerous class who have broken away from the caste organization, which, with whatever defects, is still a system of moral control. Displacement by change is no more harmful than the opposite extreme of stagnation. One whose higher faculties are not aroused by fresh situations and problems is thrown back upon the lower. While American life is, on the whole, remarkably active, its activity is not regularly distributed, and is, moreover, mostly of a somewhat narrow sort, lacking in richness and higher appeal, so that it often fails to engage the real interest of the actor. The result is that in the midst of our strenuous civilization there is a large proportion of stagnant minds. Degenerate villages, such as I have mentioned in another connection, are to be found, apparently, all over the country, and I have notes of seven or eight, in Michigan and neighboring States, that have been described in students’ papers. One, for example, is a town of about one thousand people, in a former lumbering district. When the lumbering declined the more energetic families moved out, leaving a class of people lacking in leadership and isolated from higher influences. There is no inspiration or outlook for the young people, no clubs, libraries, athletics, or Christian Associations. The schools are very poor, and the saloon with its attendant vices has everything its own way. In such a place things often go from bad to worse; families already degenerate move in, because they can get a footing easier than elsewhere, and inbreeding, both social and biological, tends to a continued deterioration. In other cases the towns are prosperous, in the economic sense, but sordid, narrow-minded, and lacking in all animating idealism. The leading people are, perhaps, orthodox church-members, but they provide no culture opportunities or wholesome recreation for the young, and seem to have no ambition for them beyond pecuniary success. Sexual vice, with or without drunkenness, seems to be the most salient form of corruption under these circumstances, and careful observers, who have been teachers in such communities, have furnished me convincing evidence that a majority of the grown-up girls and young men are sometimes involved in it.