means a pessimist. Every forward step has its bad side, but
nevertheless is a forward step. It is in the nature of things that we
shall never reach a millennium, though we may considerably improve the
value and dignity of human life. Democracy has a role in the world of
great importance,--but the spread of education and opportunity to the
mass may make it more difficult for the best ideals and customs to
survive in the avalanche of mediocrity that becomes released by the
agencies that profit by appealing to the mass. So, too, the rise of the
woman and child bring us face to face with new problems, which I think
are less difficult problems than those they have superseded and
replaced, but which are yet of importance.

And a great problem is this: how to individualize the child and keep
from spoiling him; how to give him freedom and pleasure, and keep him
from sophistication.

CHAPTER VI

POVERTY AND ITS PSYCHICAL RESULTS

In the story of Buddha it is related that it was the shock of learning
of the existence of four great evils which aroused his desire to save
mankind. These evils were Old Age, Sickness, Death, and Poverty.
Theologians and the sentimentalists are unanimous in their praise of
poverty,--the theologians because they seek their treasure in heaven,
and the sentimentalists because they are incorrigible dodgers of
reality, because they cannot endure the existence of evil. But Buddha
knew better, and the common sense of mankind has shown itself in the
desperate struggle to reach riches.

We have spoken of the part played by the physical disadvantages of
poverty in causing the nervousness of the housewife. It is not alleged
or affirmed that all poor housewives suffer from the neurosis,--that
would be nonsense. But poor food, poor housing, poor clothing, the lack
of vacations, the insufficient convalescence from illness and childbirth
are not blessings nor do they have anything but a bad effect, an effect
traceable in the conditions we are studying.

Furthermore, the woman who does all her own housework, including the
cooking, scrubbing, washing, ironing, and the multitudinous details of
housekeeping, in addition to the bearing and rearing of children, does
more than any human being should do. It is very well to say, "See what
the women of a past generation did," but could we look at the thing
objectively, we would see that they were little better than slaves. That
is the long and short of it,--the