438 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



ery) ; it owns also inherited artificial wealth, good roads, public 

 buildings, and parks, and best of all, perhaps, it has the advantage 

 of human energy and the means of training it for the service of 

 all. And yet in spite of this tremendous mass of wealth, men, 

 women and children starve or die because they eat bad food ; freeze 

 to death ; suffer for lack of air and of beauty, and frequently miss 

 the opportunity to grow into the physical and moral stature of their 

 greatest usefulness. With a view which is far as well as wide, 

 women, and men also, are learning that the material things with 

 reference to which they stand now in the position of makers or pro- 

 ducers, now in the position of buyers; again in the position of 

 users or care-takers, may be the agencies by which other men and 

 women are dwarfed and stunted and handicapped, or may be fact- 

 ors in development and in spiritual and bodily growth. Seeing this 

 they are forming for themselves a new religion whose values are 

 material as well as spiritual. 



This new religion instead of displacing and superseding the 

 old, is giving to it a zest and a much-needed earthly setting. Where- 

 as, in the old religion, man sought to get into communication with 

 the unseen by offered prayer and by inspiration received in re- 

 turn, and grew in grace in proportion as he was successful in estab- 

 lishing this communication, so in the newer religion, man seeks a 

 means of communication between himself and his fellows through 

 the medium of those material things which some make for their 

 own destruction or their own development and some use to their 

 own profit or their own loss. He feels that he is on the road to 

 perfection in the practical application of this new faith only when 

 he so uses wealth as to increase it and to secure its equitable distri- 

 bution. Under the influence of the newer creed old evils assume 

 new relative proportions and old sins appear in new guises. Now 

 inherited wealth is no excuse for failing to contribute to the gen- 

 eral store from which one must necessarily take. Now with our 

 knowledge of the world's needs, of its need of better food and 

 cleaner air, of more parks and schools and libraries and play- 

 grounds and art products, we realize that it may be a sin to insist 

 unnecessarily upon having a given piece of work done by one 

 method when it could be done as well by another process with less 

 expenditure of energy. If the time-consuming way of doing work 

 is necessary for the training of the hands, for relaxation after 

 mental labor or for the beauty of the product, it is not unnecessary. 

 This, of course, is not the opportunity to present the relative ad- 

 vantage of hand and machine labor or of work done on large and on 



