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.