The important question for all persons is whether the changes now taking
place in family life are good or ill. It is impossible to say whether
the whole trend is for the better; the many elements are too diverse and
often apparently conflicting. Faith in the orderly development of
society gives ground for belief that these changes ultimately work for a
higher type of family life. The city may be regarded as only a
transition stage in social evolution--the compacting of masses of
persons together that out of the new fusing and welding may arise new
methods of social living. The larger numbers point to more highly
developed forms of social organization. When these larger units discover
their greater purposes, above factory and mill and store, and realize
them in personal values, the city life will be a more highly developed
mechanism for the higher life of man. The home life will develop along
with that city life.


§ 4. PURPOSEFUL ORGANIZATION

At present the home is suffering, just as the city is suffering, from a
lack of that purposeful organization which will order the parts aright
and subject the processes to the most important and ultimate purposes.
The city is simply an aggregation of persons, scarcely having any
conscious organization, thrown together for purposes of industry. It
will before very long organize itself for purposes of personal welfare
and education. The family is usually a group bound in ties of struggle
for shelter, food, and pleasure. Such consciousness as it possesses is
that of being helplessly at the mercy of conflicting economic forces.
The adjustment of those forces, their subjection to man's higher
interests, must come in the future and will help the family to freedom