The nearest I ever came to
carrying it out was in warning Miss Willard that she
was constantly defying all the laws of personal
hygiene. She never rested, rarely seemed to sleep,
and had to be reminded at the table that she was
there for the purpose of eating food. She was al-
ways absorbed in some great interest, and oblivious
to anything else, I never knew a woman who could
grip an audience and carry it with her as she could.
She was intensely emotional, and swayed others by
their emotions rather than by logic; yet she was the
least conscious of her physical existence of any one
I ever knew, with the exception of Susan B. Anthony.
Like ``Aunt Susan,'' Miss Willard paid no heed to
cold or heat or hunger, to privation or fatigue. In
their relations to such trifles both women were dis-
embodied spirits.
Another woman doing wonderful work at this time
was Mrs. Quincy Shaw, who had recently started her
day nurseries for the care of tenement children whose
mothers labored by the day. These nurseries were
new in Boston, as was the kindergarten system she
also established. I saw the effect of her work in the
lives of the people, and it strengthened my growing
conviction that little could be done for the poor in a
spiritual or educational way until they were given
a certain amount of physical comfort, and until more
time was devoted to the problem of prevention.
Indeed, the more I studied economic issues, the more
strongly I felt that the position of most philan-
thropists is that of men who stand at the bottom
of a precipice gathering up and trying to heal those
who fall into it, instead of guarding the top and pre-
venting them from going over.
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