the children only, but also for the volunteers who look after them, who live at government expense; and so the large families of slender means await these summer excur-sions with the greatest impatience.

It has long been the custom in Sweden for poor children to be given a complete outfit of clothing. But the government is now work-ing to supply 750,000 children, between the ages of 1 and 15, with clothing cards which, when presented, secure the deduction of a fixed percentage from the original price. It is likewise seeking to cut down the costs of the raw materials for making children's shoes, so that these become cheap and within the reach of every child.

In families on which fate has borne hard—through the death of the breadwinner, or his illness, or

his being thrown out of work—the government sees to assigning a fixed allowance, sufficient for the support of the children in these families; and if the head of the family belongs to insurance societies against unemployment or against sickness, then in such cases the societies undertake to support the children and secure their maintenance.

Nor does aid to children stop at this limit; it extends to the administration of the municipalities, which for upwards of twenty years have set aside a portion of their budgets to be spent on sick chil-dren, especially those stricken with paralysis, sheltering them in homes prepared especially for them, giving them an ample share of schooling, and training them in trades they can practice without hardship.

The latest step the Swedish govern-ment has taken for the well-being of its children is to ask the Council of State to approve a law providing that every child between the ages of 1 and 16 be given a yearly grant sufficient to cover all its expenses. Thus responsibility is lifted from the parents' shoulders, and there is left to them only the task of caring for their children as a service, nothing more; so that they may turn—without fear—to multiplying the number of their children, and after half a century the population of Sweden will have doubled.

Such are Sweden's endeavors to improve and to increase its offspring; and I can only ask our esteemed government: what has it done, and what is it doing, for our children in this country, which is no less rich than Sweden?