After a course of lectures on sex last year some workers of my acquaintance handed in written questions beginning “What should I say to a young girl who,” etc., and were disappointed when no definite answer was forthcoming. To illustrate the difficulties of an answer let us ask a few parallel questions: What paint shall I use for a Madonna? What are the best words to use in a love sonnet? What is the best book on being a millionaire? What kind of bread makes you popular and handsome? What liniment makes one’s sympathies most supple? People rush to lectures on “sex hygiene,” sometimes for good reasons, sometimes to satisfy morbid curiosity, but often with a pathetic hunger for the bread of life. In the hope of forestalling such disappointments the lecturer should hang up before them a sign reading: “This lecture will not solve fundamental problems. Seek ye the Lord.” THE DAWN OF A BETTER DAY A MANUFACTURER SPEAKS Dudley D. Sicher [_This poem was read at a banquet of the Cotton Garment Manufacturers of New York during the last week of March. The author, a representative manufacturer, dedicated these verses, reflecting a new attitude toward employes, to his business associates._—Ed.] Do we purchase Toil at the lowest rate As we buy our cloth and thread? Do our workers labor long and late For the price of their daily bread In gloomy lofts where shadows frown, In foul, unwholesome air, Till Want and Weariness drag them down Where—we neither know nor care? If such things be, they must pass away Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day. Have they wrought us harm in the darker days, Have they kept the whole truth hid? Have they told false tales of our works and ways And of wrongs that we never did? Be not too wroth at the hiss of shame, But pass old slanders by. And cleanse your shirts of the taint of blame Where e’er the blame may lie. Old feuds, old sores be forgot for aye In the hopeful Dawn of a Better Day. Let us wipe the slate of the bitter score, Let us turn the blotted page, And grant that we owe our workers more Than the dole of a “living wage.” They give us more than their time and skill In the health and strength they spend; And earn the right to the kindly will And helpful hand of a friend. We must give them more than the coin we pay Ere we hail the Dawn of a Better Day.