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Even with this drawback, the figures of the Children's Aid Society show that progress is being made. While in 1881 its lodging-houses sheltered 14,452 children, of whom 13,155 were boys and 1,287 girls, in 1891, though more than 500,000 had been added to the city's population, the number of child-lodgers had fallen to 11,770, only 335 of whom were girls. The whole number of children sheltered in the six houses, in twelve years, to 1891, was 149,994, among them 8,820 girls. The problem is a great one, but the efforts on foot to solve it are as great, and growing. That the beginning must be made with the children in the battle with poverty and ignorance and crime was recognized long ago. It has been made; and we know now that through them the rampart next to be taken -- the home -- is reached. It has been a forty years' war, and it is only just begun. But the first blow, as the old saying runs, is half the battle, and it has been struck in New York, and struck to win.