We need in our modern life something of that spirit which prompted David to pour out upon the ground the precious cooling draught his brave followers, at the risk of their lives, brought him from the well by Bethlehem’s gate. The water had been obtained at too great a cost, the risking of human lives, and David could not drink it.[185] We need that spirit to be applied to our social relations. Those things which are cheap only by reason of the sacrifice, or risk of sacrifice, of human life and happiness are too costly for human use. While it is to a large extent true that there is no problem which depends more completely upon collective action, through the channels of government, it is also true that there is abundant room for well-directed private effort. The coöperation of all the constructive forces in society, private and public, is necessary if the children are to be saved from the evils by which they are surrounded, and the future well-being of the race made possible and certain. Here is the real reconstruction of society—the building of healthy bodies and brains to insure a citizenship free from physical and moral decay, worthy of liberty and aspiring to brotherhood. ----- Footnote H: _Charities._ Footnote I: See Appendices A and B. Footnote J: Appendix A. V BLOSSOMS AND BABIES There is an affinity between children and flowers. To me the sight of a blossom often suggests a baby, and the sight of a baby often suggests a favorite flower. Many a mother singing lullabies to the baby at her breast calls it her “blossom.” And children, healthy children, are fond of flowers. I once saw a boy of ten who didn’t know what a flower was. He knew what each card in a pack was, and he wasn’t afraid of a policeman. But he was afraid of a grassy and daisy-spangled field. London had destroyed for him all sense of kinship with Nature. But most children, even city children, love flowers. The country child loves familiarly as it loves its own mother, but the city child loves and worships. Yesterday I saw a group of little girls with their noses pressed flat against a florist’s window. “My, ain’t they sweet!” they cried in chorus. _If only the flowers could know!_ Some sympathetic and leisured ladies have formed themselves into a guild to give such children as I saw at the florist’s window growing flowers to tend and love. I do not know the ladies. We live in the same city, but in a different world. And yet we have some things in common, these good ladies and I. Perhaps many things, but chief of all a love for children and flowers. In our different worlds, so little alike, this love flourishes with equal freedom. My wife loves blossoms and babies, too, but she is not a member of the guild. Its meetings are not held in our world.