In this age of dizzy ballooning in finance and social extravagance, my prayer is: "Oh, for the revival of old fashioned, sturdy, courageous frugality that 'hath clean hands and a clean heart, and hath not lifted up its soul to vanity!'" "Do you not discover a great advance in educational facilities and in the enlargement of means to popular knowledge ?" To this question I am happy to give an affirmative reply.

Schools and universities are more richly endowed and our public schools have been greatly improved in many directions.

Among the educated classes, reading clubs and societies for discussing sociological questions are more numerous, and so are free lectures among the humbler classes.

Books have been multiplied--and at cheaper prices--to an enormous extent.

In my childhood, books adapted to the reach of children numbered not more than a score or two; now they are multiplied to a degree that is almost bewildering to the youthful mind.