ce as you have to buy a turkey for himself? Are you really
enthusiastic about so equalizing opportunities that by and by you shall
be surrounded by happy, self-reliant people who have no need of your
benefactions?

"Do you know, Scrooge, I sometimes think that it is time for some one to
write a new 'Christmas Carol,' a carol that will make the world know how
people are feeling and some of the best things they are doing in these
days. It should be founded on Justice and not on Mercy. We should feed
up Bob Cratchit and put some courage into him, and he should come to
you and ask a living wage not as a favor, but as a right. And you,
Scrooge, would not be offended at him, but you would sit down like a
sensible man and figure it out with him. And when the talk was over, you
wouldn't feel particularly generous, and he wouldn't feel particularly
grateful; it would be simple business. But you would like each other
better, and the business would seem more worth while.

"And then, when you went out with the Spirit of Christmas, you would ask
the Spirit of Democracy to go with you and show you the new things that
are most worth seeing. He wouldn't wait for the night, for the cheeriest
things would be those that go on during business hours. He would show
you some sights to make your heart glad. He would show you vast numbers
of persons who have got tired of the worship of the Blessed
Inequalities, and who are going in for the Equalities. They have a
suspicion that there is not so much difference between the Great and the
Small as has been supposed, and that what difference there is does not
prevent a frank comradeship and a perfect understanding. They think it
is better to work with people than to work for them. They think that one
of the inalienable rights of man is the right to make his own mistakes
and to learn the lesson from them without too much prompting. So they
are a little shy of many of the more intrusive forms of philanthropy.
But you should see what they are up to.

"The Spirit of Democracy will take you to visit a school that is not at
all like the school you used to go to, Scrooge. The teacher has
forgotten his rod and his rules and his airs of superiority. He is not
teaching at all, so far as you can see. He is the centre of a group of
eager learners, who are using their own wits and not depending on his.
They are so busy observing, comparing, reasoning, and finding out things
for themselves that he can hardly ge