ate Monte and his whole breed. He
embarrasses us, as sleeker individuals of the herd and hive. He is
tolerated to the diseases with which he infects us, because we have
weakened our resistance with cleanliness. But by the authority of our
better understanding, by our sacred writings and the intuitions of our
souls, we are men and no longer an animal aggregate. As men, our
business is to lift Monte from his lowly condition, and hold him there;
to make him and his children well first, and then to make workmen of
them. _There are workmen in the world for this very task of lifting
Monte and his brood._ We do not use them, because the national instinct
of Fatherhood is not yet profoundly developed. We are not yet brothers.

* * * * *

In the recent winter months in the city it came to me that I had certain
things to tell a group of young men. The class was arranged. In the
beginning I warned them not to expect literary matters; that I meant to
offer no plan to reach the short-story markets (a game always rather
deep for me); that the things which I wanted to tell were those which
had helped me toward being a man, not an artist. Fifteen young men were
gathered--all strangers to me. When we were really acquainted, weeks
afterward, I discovered that seven of the fifteen had been writing for
months or years--that there was certain stuff in the seven that would
write or die.

They had not come for what I meant to give. As a whole they were
indifferent at first to my idea of the inner life. They had come for the
gleanings I would drop, because I could not help it, having spent twenty
years learning how to learn to write. The name that had called them from
the different parts of the city was identified for good or bad in their
minds with the work they meant to do. And what I did for them was done
as a workman--that was my authority--a workman, a little older, a little
farther along in the craft that called.

And to every workman there are eager apprentices, who hunger to know,
not his way, but the way. Every workman who does the best he can, has a
store of value for the younger ones, who are drawn, they know not why,
to the production he represents. Moreover, the workman would learn more
than he could give, but he is not called. He seldom offers himself,
because the laugh of the world has already maimed him deeply.... I had
told them austerely what I would do for them, and what I would not do;
but