For the rest it would be strange, certainly, if the race did not show an improvement.

In your day, riches debauched one class with idleness of mind and body, while poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork, bad food, and pestilent homes.

The labor required of children, and the burdens laid on women, enfeebled the very springs of life.

Instead of these maleficent circumstances, all now enjoy the most favorable conditions of physical life; the young are carefully nurtured and studiously cared for; the labor which is required of all is limited to the period of greatest bodily vigor, and is never excessive; care for one's self and one's family, anxiety as to livelihood, the strain of a ceaseless battle for life--all these influences, which once did so much to wreck the minds and bodies of men and women, are known no more.

Certainly, an improvement of the species ought to follow such a change.