twenty years at hull house

On THE THEORY that our genuine impulses may be connected with our childish experiences, that one's bent may he tracked

hack to that "No-Man's Land" where character is formless but nevertheless settling into definite lines of future development, I begin this

record with some impressions of my childhood.

All of these are directly connected with my father, although of

course I recall many experiences apart from him. I was one of the

younger members of a large family and an eager participant in the village life, hut because my father was so distinctly the dominant influence and because it is quite impossible to set forth all of one's early

impressions, it has seemed simpler to string these first memories on

that single cord. Moreover, it was this cord which not only held fast

my supreme affection, but also first drew me into the moral concerns of

life, and later afforded a clew there to which I somewhat wistfully

clung in the intricacy of its mazes.

It must have been from a very early period that 1 recall "horrid