rs emphasize
the bad effect on society of vagrancy. Evils of indiscriminate relief
to the poor are vividly described year after year. The philanthropist
is condemned, who, by his gifts, encourages an employee's family to
spend what they do not earn, and to shun work. Yet the idleness of the
tramp, street loafer, and professional mendicant is a negligible evil
compared with the hindrance to human progress caused by the idleness of
the well-to-do, the rich, the educated, the refined, the "best" people.
It is as much a wrong to bring up children in an atmosphere of
do-nothingism, as to refuse to have their teeth attended to or to have
glasses fitted to weak eyes.

From the point of view of community welfare it is far more serious for
the rich child to be brought up in idleness or without a purpose than
for the poor child to become a public charge. Not only has society a
right to expect more from rich children in return for the greater
benefits they enjoy, but so long as rich children control the
expenditure of money, they control also the health and happiness of
other human beings. Unless taught the value and joy of wholesome work
they cannot themselves think straight, nor are they likely to want to
understand how they can use their wealth for the benefit of mankind. To
quote President Butler again:

The rich boy who receives a good education and is trained to be a
self-respecting member of the body politic might in time share on
equal terms the chance of the poor boy to become a man of genuine
influence and importance on his own account, just as now by the
neglect, or worse, of his parents the very rich boy is apt to be
relegated to the limbo of curiosities, and too often of decadence.

Nervous invalids make life miserable for themselves and for others,
when often their sole malady is lack of the right kind of work to do.

Suiting work to interest and interest to work is an economy that should
not be overlooked. The energy spent in forcing oneself to do a
distasteful task can be turned to productive channels when work is made
pleasurable. The fact is frequently deplored that whereas formerly a
man became a full-fledged craftsman, able to perform any branch of his
trade, he is now confined to doing special acts because neither his
interest nor his mind is called into play. Work seems to react
unfavorably on his health. He has not the pride of the artisan in the
finished product, for he seldom sees it. He do