-expect the Government to do the work. In my opinion, in this matter, the Government cann'ot lead ; they can follow and help il we could lead. Here, then, there is work enough for our doctors and an army of workers to help them. I note that you in Bengal are work- ing somewhat in this direction. I may state that a small but earnest band of volunteers are at the present moment engaged in doing such work in Cham- paran. They are posted in different villages. There they teach the village children, they give medical aid to the sick and they give practical lessons in hygiene to the village folk by cleaning their wells and roads and showing them how to treat human excreta. Nothing can yet be predicted as to results as the experiment is in its infancy. This Conference may usefully appoint a com- mittee of doctors who would study rural conditions on the spot and draw up a course of instructions for the guidance of workers and of the people at large.
Nothing perhaps affords such splendid facility to every worker, wholetime or otherwise, for effective service as the relief of agony through which the 3rd class railway passengers are passing. I feel keenly about this grievance not because I am in it but I have gone to it as I have felt keenly about -it, This matter affects millions of our poor and middle class countrymen. This helpless toleration of every i nconvenience and insult is visibly deteriorating the nation even as the cruel treat- ment to which we have subjected the so called depressed classes has made them indifferent to the laws of personal cleanliness and the very idea of self-respect. What else but downright degradation can await those who have to make a scramble always like mad animals for seats in a miserable comDarf-menh who hav* to swear
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