Hitherto students of social economics have usually considered the most pressing problem in the life of the wage-earner to be that of sufficient and suitable food.  But in any large city and in most smaller communities there are found those who have refined instincts, aspirations for a life of physical and moral cleanness, who by force of circumstances are obliged to come in contact with filth and squalor and careless disorder in order to find shelter.  If they can be kept from degenerating, their rise when it comes will lift those below them, but it is a Herculean task to lift them by lifting all below as well.  The burden which presses most heavily on this valuable material for social betterment is that of shelter rather than of food.

The thought underlying this whole series on Cost is that the place to put the leaven of progress is in the middle.  The class to work for is the great mass of intelligent, industrious, and ambitious young people turned out by our public schools with certain ideals for self-betterment, but in grave danger of losing heart in the crush due to the pressure of society around them and above them.  They fear to incur the responsibility of marriage when they see the pecuniary requirements it involves.

This growing body makes up so large a proportion of the whole in America that, once aroused, it may become an all-powerful force for regeneration, thanks to the pervading influence of public-school education when enlisted on the side of right.  Faith in the uprightness of American youth is so strong that strenuous effort for their enlightenment is justified.  Once they have their attention drawn to the need of action, they will act.  Self-preservation is one of the strongest instincts, and it may be dangerous to call upon the self-interest of these inexperienced souls; but for the sake of the results we must risk the lesser evil, if we can develop a resolution to secure a personal and race efficiency.

When the young people, with a deep appreciation of the possibilities of sane and wholesome living, marry and attempt to realize their ideals, the conditions are all against them.  They find little sympathy in their yearnings for a rational life, and soon give up the effort, deciding that they are too peculiar.  They slip almost insensibly into the routine of their neighbors.  There is great need of a cooperation of like-minded young married people to form a little community, setting its own standards and living a fairly independent life.  Two or three such groups would do more than many sermons to awaken attention to the problem before the race to-day.  Shall man yield himself to the tendencies of natural selection and be modified out of existence by the pressure of his environment, or shall he turn upon himself some of the knowledge of Nature’s forces he has gained and by “conscious evolution” begin an adaptation of the environment to the organism?  For we no longer hold with Robert Owen and the socialists that man is necessarily controlled and moulded by his surroundings, that he is absolutely subject to the laws of animal evolution.  A new era will dawn when man sees his power over his own future.  Then, and not till then, will come again that willingness to sacrifice present ease and pleasure for the sake of race progress, which alone can make the restrained life a satisfaction.