Women, therefore, are working in far greater numbers in the next phase of housing: that of educating badly housed people in the laws of hygiene. Every social movement which is not strictly evangelical instills some demand for individual and family privacy, and for the material bases of healthful and moral living. In congested areas it is the increase of wants that is essential. More mere things are needed: water, floor space, light, air, toilet conveniences, cooking and laundry equipment for individual or coöperative life, refrigerators, fire escapes, window blinds, wider and safer stairways, and innumerable other material objects. There is no other important outcome of education in hygiene or home beauty or housing standards except an increase of wants and the consequent pressure on the wage standards, without which an improvement in material possessions is impossible. Whatever individual exceptions may be found, the general rule is that the poor overcrowd and do so in order to make their pittances buy a little more food, a few more clothes, books for their children, the month’s actual shelter, or a doctor’s services. Some women are consciously preaching higher standards of living to foreigners, negroes, and the poor of every race assembled here, knowing the ultimate pressure their work will have on labor demands. The settlements which have almost involuntarily helped in this education from the beginning, are more and more being led into the support of working class movements having for their goal better wages and steadier employment, as we discover in the chapter on social service. Other women are unconsciously creating dissatisfaction with congestion and with that poverty which underlies bad housing, through the teaching of domestic science in all its forms, through public school education, health centers, and the rest. The willingness to pay the price accompanies or follows the desire for the things which make for health and culture. CHAPTER VII SOCIAL SERVICE Social service is not an exact science and it does not mean the same thing to all people. Charity or philanthropy was more definite and has always been more or less of an official concern in municipalities. In times of crises, floods, panics, fires, earthquakes, extreme cold or excessive heat, cities and towns have supplemented the help rendered by individuals in alleviating hunger, homelessness, illness and want. The municipality thus often makes charitable doles to the victims of the elements, regarding the service as necessary, but temporary; remedial, not preventive.