may

well be pardoned if it looks forward not boastfully but serenely to the future and its difficulties. The problems of America will undoubtedly be much more like those which harass modern Europe; undoubtedly, as the years go by, the lessons of the Old World will become of more and more practical value to the New. But Americans may be pardoned for believing that theories like socialism, which owe much of their inspiration to the success of democratic institutions here, will find their solution in America rather than in Europe. Lowell wrote after our civil war: "Earth's biggest country 's got her soul,

And risen up earth's greatest nation."

This being so, it will not be strange if socialism, like some other fundamental questions of the modern world, receives its decisive answer from the American Spirit.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HIGHER INDIVIDUALISM.

WE have noted the assumption, common in socialistic literature, that individualism implies the selfishness of the person who holds it as a political and economic doctrine, while the socialist, on the contrary, is a person of generous temper, with broad and deep sympathies. As a matter of fact, however, there are two individualisms in the moral sphere, to be sharply distinguished.

There is a Lower Individualism, which is simply private selfishness. It has nothing to do with theories of the right relation of the State and the citizen; it has no concern for the common weal; it will cheerfully think, if not say, "The public be damned,” if, in the interesting process, its own pockets are replenished; it is purely the mind of the flesh, the spirit of the brute, the survival of the barbarian under a civilization supposed to be rational and Christian. It is the same old enemy with which morality and religion have always had to contend. Naturally, however, when it pretends to put forth an idea, this will be on the side of a thoroughly competitive system, "each man for himself:" it will practice coöperation only within its own family, firm or “trust. This doctrine, if it can be so called, is as absurd scientifically as it is wrong morally.

A Higher Individualism is possible and has long

been actual with at least a few of each generation of mankind. It respects every person as having something of infinite worth in him, and would begin to improve the world by elevating the single spirit, counting no advance permanent that is not based on reformed and cultivated individuals. This method fully deserves the epithet "Christian," derived from "the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of a man." The teaching of Jesus was profoundly individualistic in its imperative address to the private conscience. Such a spiritual doctrine does not find its natural alliance with a mechanical Socialism. This, with most of its expounders, is materialistic to the core. The Christian spirit is in full harmony

with a rationalized Individualism in social life. So inspired, individualism includes voluntary coöperation, the method of modern civilization; and the ideal towards which it tends is Fraternalism, not Paternalism. The inquiry is extremely pertinent: "Have we yet even discovered the resources of an individualism which is not synonymous with selfishness but welcomes and fosters public spirit?" Few wise persons will answer this question in the affirmative.

If we consider briefly a few of the reforms demanded to-day by sober thinkers, we shall see how slight, as compared with the revolutionary processes of Socialism, is the effort needed to carry them out, if a few strong persons will work on the plane of the Higher Individualism. No evil in our cities appeals more forcibly to the kind-hearted than the crowded tenement-houses, such as those at the North End in Boston or in "Cherry Hill" in New York. Vice finds a hot-bed in the conditions of brute-like living which here abound, and many diseases become en

demic. Every one who has a particle of philanthropy in him cries out that these evils should be made to cease from off the earth. The end is clear; but what means shall we use? The socialist will dilate upon what Glasgow and Liverpool have done, and urge that Boston and New York at once purchase whole squares, pull down the noisome houses of to-day, and erect, instead, clean and convenient tenements, to be let at low rates. This, however, would be too much like journeying from Chicago to Minneapolis via Paris, the Suez Canal and Japan. The Chicagoan would thus reach Minneapolis in time, indeed, if money and patience held out. But a more direct way would be first to discover what persons are responsible, as owners or lessors of these foul habitations; and then to bring home to them as individuals the distress and the crime which they occasion, while drawing profit from such inhuman conditions. Many of these persons sin as much through ignorance as through hardness of heart. One may preach to them their simple duty to keep their houses clean and uncrowded with far more hope of success than he could preach municipal socialism to the citizens, or the city government, of Boston or New York.

If these owners or lessors of bad tenement-houses remain indifferent, and will do nothing, the lash of public opinion should fall upon them. But if this should be of no effect, the men and women who are taught by the Higher Individualism that we are our brothers' keepers, to a great degree, can then follow the example of Mrs. Lincoln in Boston. Let them singly, or in small associations, buy or lease one or more city houses in the poorer districts, and care for them in person, or through kindly and capable agents.

A large part of the tenement-house problem is manageable under this simple plan. No kind of charitable work by the well-to-do surpasses in effectiveness this business system, which asks moderate rents for decent tenements, and returns a fair interest on the capital invested to the owner or lessor of the house. Where this plan is not expedient, the Peabody trustees in London, the Improved Dwelling-House Associations in Boston and New York, and such individuals as Mr. A. T. White in Brooklyn have demonstrated the eminent success of a more difficult method. Mr. J. A. Riis, a good authority, believes thoroughly in the compatibility of "philanthropy and five per cent.,' -the one as the beginning, the other as the result. "Model tenement building," he says, "has not been attempted in New York on anything like as large a scale as in many other cities; and it is, perhaps, owing to this, in a measure, that a belief prevails that it cannot succeed here. This is a wrong notion entirely."

The tenement-house problem in our American cities is thus fully within the control of a comparatively few persons. In view of the enormous fortunes of our later day, George Peabody's gift of $2,500,000 for the London poor seems small; many persons in these United States could easily surpass his munificence. Yet the sum he gave now affords healthful and pleasant homes at low rent for more than twenty thousand people; and the capital has doubled, thus doubling the resources of the trustees. Very few of the very rich or the moderately rich in the United States would need to be converted to a higher individualism than they now practice, to make this tenement-house problem a thing of the past, so far as money can do it.