I am as much at a loss today in regard to moral values as I ever was. I have little hope left of succeeding in my experiment. This is the sad thing. The good fight has been a long one. From the continued campaigning, I am prematurely spent. Under fifty, I am prematurely old. The _élan_ of youth is gone. At the Hotel des Invalides in Paris they tell the story of a war-scarred crippled veteran of the Napoleonic wars. His breast was covered with service medals. At one of the annual inspections a young commander complimented on his many decorations. "My General," the old soldier replied, "I can no longer carry a musket, it would have been better to have died gloriously at Austerlitz." I am far from the sad pass of this decrepit veteran, yet his story touches me nearly. The best days have flown. I have lived intensely. Into each combat whether the insignificant skirmish of my daily work, or the more decisive battles—I have thrown myself with spendthrift energy. I do not regret this attitude towards life. I am glad I met its problems face to face—with passionate endeavor. But the price must be paid. Nowadays I have little ardor left. The youthful questing spirit is gone—and I have not found the Holy Grail. Perhaps these young people are right. I may have started wrong—in trying to find the truth for myself alone. Perhaps there are no individualistic ethics. They may find the answer expressed in social terms. Perhaps. But I have no energy left to begin the experiment again. But once more I must repeat, I do not regret my manner of life. We are offered but two choices; to accept things as they are or to strive passionately for new and better forms. Defeat is not shameful. But supine complaisance surely is. Out of the lives of all my generation a little increment of wisdom has come to the race. Neither the renaissance, nor the reformation seem to me as fundamental changes as we have wrought. We have made the nation suddenly conscious of itself. We have not cured its ills, but at least we have made great strides in diagnosis. And my experiment—in its tiny, coral-insect way—has been an integral part in this increment of wisdom. I am more optimistic today than ever before. And if I wish to live on—as I surely do—it is to watch these youngsters in their struggle for the better form. How much better equipped they are than we were, how much clearer they see! I think of myself as I left college—so afraid of life that I was glad to find shelter among old books. I recall how strange seemed that first dinner in the Children’s House with Norman. And then I think of Billy. Why! The knowledge of life those pioneer settlement workers were just beginning to discover are conversational commonplaces among Billy’s friends. The abolition of poverty!