"He is at once admitted to the school, where in most cases the influences of cleanliness, decency, and home surroundings, transform him in a few weeks from a homeless, dirty waif, ragged, hungry and hopeless, into a bright, well clad, well fed lad, with the opportunity before him of receiving a good education and learning a trade which will give him an object in life. The Training School is in no sense a prison, and has neither bolts nor bars nor corporeal punishments. The boys are governed by love and kindness; and, although they are taken from the street and gutter, it is surprising as it is gratifying to find how short a time produces an entire change in their appearance, manners and conduct."--_Oscar L. Dudley, Secretary and General Manager of the Illinois School of Agriculture and Manual Training for Boys, before the National Conference of Charities and Correction._ SUMMARY The author believes that character-building and habit-forming institutions should be appreciated and supported as _fundamental bases of government_, in that they are _nurseries of good citizenship_, and not simply as minor branches of education, as at present classified, and that no intelligent effort should be spared to make them available to the _Last Waif_ in a community as well as to the most favored. * * * * * Character-building and habit-forming institutions, as here meant, include the crèche, the kindergarten, domestic science, manual-training schools and parental farms of demonstrated usefulness; the special usefulness consisting of supplying nourishment for infants necessary to supplement that received at home, teaching suggestions from which to absorb self-respect, and also respect for thrift and order, and the provision of ample opportunities for the discovery of that talent or preference for some useful occupation with which every normal human being is equipped at birth--the one occupation that every person would rather pursue than do anything else, or be idle,--if only it can be found. * * * * * The moral effect of saving The Last Waif from neglect would, in itself, be much greater than the saving of hundreds of stray waifs by less thorough means, and the beneficial influence of a moral wave, such as the establishment of Perfect Social Quarantine would produce, would be felt in raising the average efficiency of family instruction in character-building in the same proportion that a complete thing is superior to anything that is weak in some of its parts. A resultant effect would be the establishment of Dirt Quarantine and Sanitary Quarantine Measures on lines of parallel efficiency, as already proven by the influence of kindergarten work in slums, for cleanliness begets cleanliness as surely as dirt begets dirt. * * * * *