making a great effort for the common people."

"But we haven't any common people here," replied Margaret, quickly. "That
bright boy you noticed in my class, who was a terror six months ago, will
no doubt be in the City Council in a few years, and likely enough mayor."

"Oh, I know your theory. It practically comes to the same thing, whatever
you call it. I couldn't see that the work in New York differed much from
that in London. We who have leisure ought to do something for the
working-classes."

"I sometimes doubt if it is not all a mistake most of our charitable
work. The thing is to get people to do something for themselves."

"But you cannot do away with distinctions?"

"I suppose not, so long as so many people are born vicious, or
incompetent, or lazy. But, Mr. Lyon, how much good do you suppose
condescending charity does?" asked Margaret, firing up in a way the girl
had at times. "I mean the sort that makes the distinctions more evident.
The very fact that you have leisure to meddle in their affairs may be an
annoyance to the folks you try to help by the little palliatives of
charity. What effect upon a wretched city neighborhood do you suppose is
produced by the advent in it of a stylish carriage and a lady in silk, or
even the coming of a well-dressed, prosperous woman in a horse-car,
however gentle and unassuming she may be in this distribution of sympathy
and bounty? Isn't the feeling of inequality intensified? And the
degrading part of it may be that so many are willing to accept this sort
of bounty. And your men of leisure, your club men, sitting in the windows
and seeing the world go by as a spectacle-men who never did an hour's