The first of these has been much better understood in America than the second. That it is wrong to keep a man down who might rise is quite familiar, but that those who cannot rise, or do not care to, have also just claims is almost a novel idea, though they are evidently that majority for whom our institutions are supposed to exist. Owing to a too exclusive preoccupation with ideals of enterprise and ambition, a certain neglect, and even reproach, have rested upon those who do quietly the plain work of life. Ours, if you think of it, is rather too much success on the tontine plan, where one puts all he has into a pool in the hope of being one of a few survivors to get what the rest lose; it would be better to take to heart that idea of Emerson’s that each may succeed in his own way, without putting others down. It is a great thing that every American boy may aspire to be president of the United States, or of the Standard Oil Company, but it is equally important that he should have a chance for full and wholesome life in the more probable condition of clerk or mill hand. While we must admire the heroes of Samuel Smiles, we may remember that they do and should constitute only a small minority of the human race. And the main guaranty for freedom of this latter sort is some kind of class organization which shall resist the encroachment and neglect of which the weaker parties in society are in constant danger. Those who have wealth, position, knowledge, leisure, may perhaps dispense with formal organization (though in fact it is those who are strong already who most readily extend their strength in this way), but the multitudes who have nothing but their human nature to go upon must evidently stand together or go to the wall. FOOTNOTES: [113] I make frequent use of this word to mean an activity which furthers some general interest of the social group. It differs from “purpose” in not necessarily implying intention. [114] Democracy and Social Ethics, 219. CHAPTER XXII HOW FAR WEALTH IS THE BASIS OF OPEN CLASSES IMPERSONAL CHARACTER OF OPEN CLASSES—VARIOUS CLASSIFICATIONS—CLASSES, AS COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD, BASED ON OBVIOUS DISTINCTIONS—WEALTH AS GENERALIZED POWER—ECONOMIC BETTERMENT AS AN IDEAL OF THE ILL-PAID CLASSES—CONCLUSION.