The servant class may continue a long time yet to be a school of development for those of the lower classes, who, ripe in body, are not intellectually independent; just as the duty of bearing arms has been a school of improvement for all male youth. Life-long servants are as seldom to be desired as life-long soldiers. In most places, the long transition period from complete bondage to free competition was governed by a police system of wardship, which was very unfavorable to the servant class. Such especially was the provision that all young people of the lower classes, who could not expressly show that they were employed under the paternal roof or at some trade, should be compelled to seek some outside or inland work;(462) such also was the strict prohibition of “usurious” wage-claims, and the “decoying” of servants from their masters.(463) Besides, a great many provisions relating to servants, and based on views belonging to an older economic condition, were intended to throw obstacles in the way of farm hands and country servants(464) becoming servants in towns; and, on the other hand, to facilitate the speedy abandonment of service in all cases in which the servant desired to marry.(465) All these preferences in favor of one class of contractors, and at the cost of another, are radically opposed to the modern political spirit. The laws relating to servants are wont, in our day, to have but one object, the prevention, by registration with the police, of fraud and breach of contract, and of all strife and litigation by the legally formulating of the conditions which are very frequently tacitly understood. The ideal of the relation of master and servant is attained when it is considered by both as a part of the life of a Christian family.(466) Hence, benevolence on the one side and devotedness on the other, fidelity on both sides, disinterested care for the present and future interests each of the other _tanquam sua_; and especially for each other’s eternal future. Whether this state of mutual feeling is best furthered by the patriarchal system, by a police system, or by free competition, it is scarcely possible to say. It may, however, be affirmed that it depends upon a mutual and continued denial of self not easy to attain. Where it really prevails, all the advantages of the piece-work system are obtained in a worthy and organic manner, and without its atomistic drawbacks.(467) Chapter V. Community Of Goods And Private Property. Capital—Property. Section LXXVII. Capital.—Importance Of Private Property.