She had intended after her graduation to study medicine and to help the poor, but she was urged to go abroad because she was in poor health. While in London and elsewhere, she was greatly distressed by the wretched condition of the poor. Now she was more determined than ever to go about the work of helping others. Miss Addams believed that it is better to show people how to help themselves than to give them gifts of money. “It is hard to help people one does not know,” she reasoned, “and how can one really know people without seeing them very often?” True to the decision she had made as a child, she resolved to live among the poor and be a real neighbor to them. With the help of some friends, Miss Addams opened Hull-House, which is located in a tenement section of Chicago. Here, she established a day nursery where mothers who had to go out to work could leave their babies in good care. A kindergarten was organized for the young children in the neighborhood. There are clubs for girls and boys, and also for men and women. Classes in sewing, cooking, and millinery are conducted for the girls. “The Young Heroes,” a boy’s club, to-day has for its own use a five-story building equipped with recreation and study rooms. Printing, photography, and many other trades can be learned there. Hull-House, originally occupying one building, is now using thirteen buildings, each fitted for some special service. For more than thirty years Miss Addams and her fellow-workers have stood ready to do any neighborly act, from bathing little babies to teaching and entertaining lonely old women. At Hull-House a cordial welcome always awaits everyone. Besides her friendly aid to those who flock to Hull-House, Jane Addams has been a good neighbor to people whom she has never seen. She helped to have a law passed in Illinois to prevent children who are under fourteen years of age from working in factories. Through her efforts public baths have been provided in Chicago. Remembering the merry games she played as a child on the river banks near her home, she has made many a plea for more playgrounds for city girls and boys. Miss Addams has been a member, often the chairman, of many important committees that have been organized to plan ways for making the world a better place in which to live. She has also found time to write books on this subject. Jane Addams might have given money to the poor and spent her time in travel and amusement, but she preferred to give herself. Because she loves people enough to learn what they really need and works _with_ them as well as _for_ them, thousands bless her as a true friend and neighbor. [Illustration] Louisa M. Alcott— Whose Stories of Real Life Are A Delight to Girls and Boys