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travel, and of economic study, hut they are sustaining this shock

of inaction. They have pet phrases, and they tell you that the

things that make us all alike are stronger than the things that

make us different. They say that all men are united hy needs and

sympathies far more permanent and radical than anything that

temporarily divides them and sets them in opposition to each

other. If they affect art, they say that the decay in artistic expression is due to the decay in ethics, that art when shut away from

the human interests and from the great mass of humanity is selfdestructive. They tell their elders with all the bitterness of youth

that if they expect success from them in business or politics or in

whatever lines their ambition for them has run, they must let

them consult all of humanity; that they must let them find out

what the people want and how they want it. It is only the

stronger young people, however, who formulate this. Many of

them dissipate their energies in so-called enjoyment. Others not

content with that, go on studying and go back to college for their

second degrees; not that they are especially fond of study, but because they want something definite to do, and their powers have

been trained in the direction of mental accumulation. Many are

buried beneath this mental accumulation with lowered vitality

* and discontent. Walter Besant says they have had the vision that

Peter had when he saw the great sheet let down from Heaven,

wherein was neither clean nor unclean. He calls it the sense of

humanity. It is not philanthropy nor benevolence, but a thing

fuller and wider than either of these.

This young life, so sincere in its emotion and good phrases and

yet so undirected, seems to me as pitiful as the other great mass of

destitute lives. One is supplementary to the other, and some

method of communication can surely be devised. Mr. Barnett,

who urged the first Settlement, —Toynbee Hall, in East London, —recognized this need of outlet for the young men of Oxford and

Cambridge, and hoped that the Settlement would supply the

communication. It is easy to see why the Settlement movement

originated in England, where the years of education are more

constrained and definite than they are here, where class distinctions are more rigid. The necessity of it was greater there, but we

are fast feeling the pressure of the need and meeting the necessity

for Settlements in America. Our young people feel nervously the

need of putting theory into action, and respond quickly to the

Settlement form of activity.