money-income gained through smartness rather than by ability. If life is
made too easy, men will settle into indolent sterility, just as animals
and plants degenerate with too much food.

The future will surely bring greater mechanical perfection and thus leave
it possible for the individual, for each member of the family group, to do
for himself many little things which are not comfortable to do now. But
will he be willing to do them? Not unless he feels it to be a duty or a
pleasure. Not unless there is an undercurrent of principle which carries
him along. Without this principle strong enough to give an impetus over
hard places in the early stages of life, the individual and the family
will surely drift into the hotel and boarding-house, where everything is
done on a money basis and nothing for love of one's kind; where a tip
salves the hurt of menial work. These habits once gained are hard to break
up; therefore it is much better for young people to begin life doing some
things for themselves in a house where machinery responds to their call
without a tip, where they may economize without loss of self-respect. We
need to revive some of the pagan ideals of the beauty and value of the
human body and human life which consists in the care and use of this body.
There is no menial work in the daily living rightly carried out; that
which the last century wrongly permitted is made needless by the machinery
of to-day.

The point of view is most important.

The first steps toward social betterment will come through a cooperation
of three forces: (1) a recognition of the need; (2) an awakening of social
conscience to the duty of supplying the need; and (3) the movement of
moneyed philanthropy to fulfil the requirement quickly.