The experiment had long passed the experimental stage when I paid my first visit to Eggenburg; for, by that time, the inmates had already been going barefoot for some ten years. From the first it had proved a marked success, the very officials who had done everything they could to prevent its being tried, frankly admitted; so marked a success, indeed, that they had all become hearty supporters of the new system. Even the Directress of the girls’ wing, who had almost broken her heart when the change was made, and would have resigned her post forthwith but for her devotion to her charges, spoke enthusiastically of the good it had wrought among them. Most of them were at a trying age, between twelve and sixteen; and most of them were delicate, never free from coughs and colds. She was as sure as of life itself, therefore, the first day they went barefoot, that they would all be ill in bed on the morrow. To her amazement, however, as she told me, when the morrow came, there was no sign of special illness among them. On the contrary, instead of coughing more than usual, they coughed less, and were in less urgent need of pocket-handkerchiefs. Before a week had passed the great majority of them had ceased coughing at all, and not one of them had a cold in her head. The Director told me much the same tale; as it was with the girls so was it with the boys. By banishing shoes and stockings, he declared, Dr. Schöffel had practically banished colds with all their attendant evils. Under the new system, it was a rare thing for any boy to develop a cold after being at Eggenburg a week. The general health of all the children had improved quite wonderfully, both he and the Directress assured me, since going barefoot had become the order of the day. And what they said was confirmed by what I heard from every doctor I came across who knew Eggenburg; was confirmed, too, by what I saw there with my own eyes. For a finer set of youngsters than the boys and girls there I have never seen in any institution, and have not often seen anywhere else.