The Bahamas, Old and New 113 



and regardless of whether they were particularly liked 

 at first, the general run of the men found that they 

 got so much for so little that they could ill afford to 

 provide their own wretched type of meal for which 

 they had a natural liking in place of the more prop- 

 erly balanced meals which were somewhat strange 

 and under normal conditions would be unacceptable 

 to the uninitiated palate. Through better feeding our 

 men have found that they are less prone to sickness, 

 that they are less susceptible to cold, and that they 

 have a greater abundance of vitality than ever before. 



The same has been true of our attempts at proper 

 housing, of our attempt at maintaining a proper clinic, 

 where it is now quite plainly evident that the benefits 

 received are worth while, that they lead to actual 

 greater enjoyment of life, and we have in the making 

 a tentative acceptance of the fact that a higher standard 

 of living is something worth striving for, that al- 

 though to be industrious requires a considerable ex- 

 penditure of personal effort, the returns from such 

 industry begin to lead toward something approxi- 

 mating home life, toward an atmosphere less laden 

 with the wretched squalor and misery that was so gen- 

 erally accepted as being the only form of life ob- 

 tainable. 



Concurrently with this slow awakening of interest 

 we have carried on an educational program which 

 had its foundation in our garage and maintenance shops 

 where our youngest and, per se, most intelligent labor 

 material was started in chipping rust, cleaning machine 

 parts and finally, though slowly, learned not only the 



