others see the wonderful
character-building of productive labour. Until the work is found for the
man, or man rises to find his own; until the great impetus in our
national life is toward the end of developing the intrinsic values of
each child, and fitting the task to it; so long as trade masters the
many, and the minds of the majority are attracted toward the simple
theorem of making cheap and forcing sales, or buying cheap and selling
dear; so long as the child is competitively educated in great classes,
and the pride of life is in possession of material things, instead of
the eternal things--just so long will we have war and governmental
stupidity, and all shames and misery for our portion.

24

THE FRESH EYE

Living in rows, conducting our movements and our apparel as nearly as
possible in accordance with the hitch of the moment, singing the songs
our neighbours sing--this is Order, but gregarian order. It is thus that
we lose or postpone the achievement of the fresh eye, the sensitiveness
to feel ourselves and the truth. We accept that which we are told as
true and beautiful; we accept that which is accepted. In reality, each
man's sense of beauty is a different treasure. He must have the spirit
of pioneers to come into his own.

A few years ago I passed for a square or two along the main avenue of a
large city--a sunny afternoon in early winter, as I remember, and the
hour of promenade. Young women and girls were wearing reds of the most
hideous shades--the reds of blood and lust and decadence.

"Those are the Balkan reds," I was told.

A bit of poison has lingered from that shaft. I saw something about
America that I have been unable to forget. The women and girls didn't
know what they were doing. They had accepted Trade's offering of the
season blindly. Trade had exploited the reds, because the word Balkans
was in the air that Fall, on account of an extra vicious efflorescence
of the fighting disease. American mothers had allowed their children to
ape barbarities of colour which are adjusted exactly to those sinking
and horror-bound peoples--bloody as the Balkans--because Trade had
brought them in.

These reds meant that the American multitude was unaware that certain
colours are bad as hell. Trade will always lead a people astray. The eye
that wants something from you, cannot lead you into beauty, does not
know beauty.... Moreover, we are led downward in taste by such short
steps that often w